


Silver Linings

by cantaloupe, sisstrider



Series: Silver Linings [1]
Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: M/M, i killed off my favorite character in the first part, oh no not relationship drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2017-12-12 02:35:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/806169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cantaloupe/pseuds/cantaloupe, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sisstrider/pseuds/sisstrider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>More often than not, things don't turn out as planned. When Ishimaru Kiyotaka rescues Komaeda Nagito from being lynched, the latter's feelings are originally of unadulterated gratitude. From there, those pure feelings blossom into romantic affections, and soon Ishimaru feels that the other has become too close for comfort. However, every cloud has a silver lining; even if the situation is as ridiculous as this.</p><p>1/3 ENDINGS UNLOCKED</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. False Accusations

**Author's Note:**

> i finally get off my ass and write a serious fanfic...for a crack otp
> 
> the scenario is like the first dangan ronpa but with all these characters
> 
> thanks yosh —yosh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> revised 7-7-14

“And _that_ is why Komaeda is the culprit!” Hinata concluded. 

The situation was the murder of Hiyoko Saionji, and the school trial seemed to have just been concluded. Hiyoko had been found lying dead outside the cafeteria. Her death looked to be extremely gruesome: not only was she cut open, but she had multiple bad burn wounds. Her body had been found taped to the ground, so it could be inferred that she had been restrained that way during the murder. 

Hinata and Naegi had spent their time collecting evidence, though Kirigiri had to encourage Naegi to assist in the investigation — without her interference, he would have just stood there, too shocked by the murder that had occurred to do anything really useful.

They had managed to pinpoint Komaeda as the culprit because of the excessively cruel nature of the murder — he liked to go on about how good fortune would only happen after something terrible. This was the first murder. Their accusation was also backed up by the fact that Komaeda agreed with them, up to the point of wondering when they were going to go about killing him already.

“That’s about it!” Monobear said. “Looks like it’s time for the execution! If you’re wrong...well, it won’t matter, everyone else except the real culprit will die too! Upupu...”

“Why go through all that?” Naegi exclaimed. “Why do we have to go through this senseless killing?”

“Because it’s all your fault!” Monobear replied.

“Not the executions!” Naegi retorted. 

“Well...unfortunately, the school doesn’t have enough money to pay for anything like execution machines, especially with our doubled class size. So, you’ll have to do the executing yourself!” That being said, Monobear hit the red button in front of him with a gavel. The floor in the middle of the stands retracted, and a gallows rose out of the ground, a noose already hung on it. At first, everyone stood there in stunned silence.

“What the hell are we waiting for? Let’s get the murdering coward!” Mondo yelled. He leaped over his stand and grabbed Komaeda, who didn’t even protest. Soon, a whole riot erupted. People were shouting and shoving Komaeda towards the gallows, even though he was compliant and would have walked there and hanged himself even if nobody had moved.

Everyone seemed to be caught up in the lynching except Ishimaru, who was standing by, pondering the things he had picked up in the hall. He wasn’t a deductive genius like Hinata and Kirigiri, or even Naegi, but he knew something was up.

“Hold it!” he yelled. Nobody paid any attention to him, as everyone was still busy trying to lynch Komaeda. Mondo was still holding him up, and Peko had actually picked up Kuzuryuu so he could slip the noose over Komaeda’s head.

Ishimaru slipped through the stands into the middle of the throng. “Hold it!” he shouted again, and this time, everyone froze. “I have some additional evidence I’d like to present!”

“Oh, so you’re just getting it _now_?” Hinata asked. “Why couldn’t you show it in the first place?”

“I didn’t have time, I found it right before the trial,” Ishimaru explained. “But I think it’s enough to prove that Komaeda-kun is innocent!” He pulled a gold lighter out of his pocket. “Is this your lighter?”

“Of course it is, how else would I have burned Saionji-san?” he asked, not at all bothered by the fact that Mondo hadn’t put him down yet.

“Would you have a _gold-plated_ lighter, though?” Ishimaru waved the lighter around so that everyone could see its golden exterior. 

“But does that mean...” Naegi turned to look at Togami, who just huffed at his accusation.

“Are you suggesting that just because someone found something that looks expensive, it’s mine?” Togami asked. “Perhaps it’s just cheap paint.”

To test it, Ishimaru dug his thumb into the top of the lighter. It made a small dent in the gold plating. “That looks like gold to me!” he called out.

“Okay, so I’ll admit, it’s mine,” Togami said. “That still doesn’t prove anything, as far as I know that lighter has been in my drawer the entire time. Someone could have taken it from my room.”

“Which one of you is the creep who went into Byakuya-sama’s room and took his lighter?” Touko asked.

“Well, I found —” Ishimaru began, only to be interrupted.

“You’re the accomplice!” Kuzuryuu yelled. “You just made that evidence up right now, didn’t you? Well, shut up, let’s lynch him!” With that, he slipped the noose over Komaeda’s neck. Even with all his talk about openly inviting death, Komaeda flinched when the noose went around him. Mondo was about to drop him and let him hang when Ishimaru started yelling again.

“Don’t drop him!” Ishimaru commanded. “I didn’t get any time to explain anything! The lighter isn’t the only thing I found. It fell out of Togami-kun’s pocket along with this note!” He raised a crumpled piece of paper in the air. “I picked them up and was about to scold him for littering, but then the trial started. I didn’t have any time to look at them until this execution began, but now that I see it, the culprit is definitely Togami-kun!”

Togami just stared at Ishimaru, his demeanor as impassive and cold as ever. “You really think I’m the culprit? And for what reason, you picked up some things that were in the hall? I’ve never seen stupidity such as this.”

“I’m the Super High-School Level Hall Monitor, so it’s my duty to make sure everyone follows the rules, and littering is definitely against the rules!” Ishimaru retorted. “If I see any infractions such as that, I always commit the person who did them to memory so I can write them up! And what I remember is that you dropped these!” he finished.

“That’s just garbage,” Togami said. “Just like you and your baseless claim.”

Ishimaru shook with rage at the insult, but he couldn’t start a fight in the courtroom. Discipline was important to him, and besides, he could probably kill Togami, and then he would be the one executed.

“Hang on,” Naegi said. “Can you read us the note, Ishimaru-kun?”

“Sure,” Ishimaru said. He smoothed out the paper and read: “Be my bodyguard or I’ll show everyone the picture I picked up!” It was written on a sheet of white paper, but the bottom of the note was torn off. 

“Is that all?” Naegi asked.

Ishimaru nodded and held up the note. “It’s torn here, though. Maybe Togami-kun tore off a part that would incriminate him as the culprit!”

“Well, I have a note exactly like that,” Naegi said, pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket. He unfolded the paper, and Ishimaru handed him the note he had. Naegi compared the two for a moment, then concluded, “This is the exact same note written by the exact same person. The only difference is that mine was signed by a person in the same spot that was ripped off on this other note. My note was signed by...Hiyoko Saionji!”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Togami replied. “It could be someone else’s paper that I found on the floor. That’s how you found it, isn’t it?” he asked Ishimaru.

Ishimaru did not answer his question. Instead, he was pondering over something else. “The note said something about ‘the picture I picked up’. Now what could she have meant by that...?”

“It’s the motivation,” Kirigiri recalled. “Remember? Monobear took us to the gym and showed us all envelopes containing embarrassing photos of us. And he said that if there wasn’t a murder soon, he would pass them around.”

“But why would Saionji-kun have the photos of Naegi-kun and Togami-kun?” Ishimaru asked. “Did she...steal them from Monobear? That’s definitely against the rules, he would have killed her!”

“No, Monobear dropped two of the envelopes without noticing before he left,” Kirigiri said. “Hiyoko-san must have picked them up.”

“How do your remember all this? That’s amazing!” Ishimaru exclaimed.

Kirigiri didn’t reply. She just walked over to Naegi and looked at the notes. “I see.”

“So Togami-kun ripped off the part where Hiyoko-san signed her name to make sure nobody would suspect him if they found the note,” Naegi said. “I guess he didn’t think Saionji-san had sent notes to anyone else.”

“Byakuya-sama wouldn’t kill anybody in that horrible way!” Touko protested. “He’s not the culprit!”

Hinata opened the Monobear File they had been given and read through the information. “This file doesn’t even say the cause of death! Maybe there’s something we’re missing here.”

“That’s it. Monobear, can we go back and look at the body?” Kirigiri asked. 

“Hm...the trial already started! You should have finished investigating in the time I gave you!” Monobear replied.

“Well, what about if I go with only a few people?” she suggested. “We’re not going to investigate for much longer. I just need to check on one thing.”

“Who are you bringing?” Monobear asked.

“I’ll take...” Kirigiri thought over the people who had been leading the trial. “Naegi-kun, Hinata-kun, and Ishimaru-kun.”

“Huh! Me?” Ishimaru exclaimed. He didn’t really think he was qualified to help Naegi, Hinata, and Kirigiri help the investigation. All he had really done was find some game-changing evidence. He could just give them the evidence, and they could probably extract some undeniable evidence pinpointing Togami as the culprit from it.

“Yes, you. It’s your theory that Togami-kun is the culprit, so maybe you’ll be able to find more evidence pointing to him,” Naegi replied.

“That’s also dangerous, though,” Kirigiri said. “If you become to focused on trying to incriminate Togami-kun, you might start to interpret every little thing as pointing to him. Even so, Naegi-kun is correct. This is your theory, so you have every right to come with us.”

“Okay, fine! Go!” Monobear said. “But come back quickly! You have twenty minutes!”

Kirigiri nodded at the group she had collected. “Come on, let’s hurry.”

The group of four went up the elevator and headed straight for the cafeteria entrance, where Hiyoko’s body was still found on the floor.

“Now, did anyone actually bother to investigate the body properly?” Kirigiri asked. Everyone shook their heads. “All right, I can’t believe that I didn’t do this earlier.” She began gently examining Hiyoko’s many wounds, nodding and sometimes mumbling to herself. 

“What are you looking for, Kirigiri-san?” Naegi asked.

Kirigiri didn’t answer until she finished her inspection. “Well, all of these wounds are sloppy, as if the cutter was in a hurry. However, there are little to no blood smears in the area, as if Saionji-san didn’t resist. More likely, she wasn’t able to resist.”

“So she was drugged!” Ishimaru exclaimed.

“Not drugged,” Kirigiri said, “more likely, she was already dead. Normally, you should never disturb the crime scene like this, but I have a feeling the culprit did this on purpose to mask their identity.” 

Hiyoko’s body was attached to the floor by duct tape going across her neck, forearms, waist, and legs. Kirigiri reached for the tape across her neck began peeling it off carefully. Naegi knelt down and started peeling off the tape over her left arm, as well.

“Look at this,” Kirigiri said when she had removed the tape. She ran her finger over a small, clean cut in Hiyoko’s throat. Dry smears of blood were all over her throat, some of them bearing imprints of fingers. “Signs of a struggle. This is probably how she was really killed, not all...this.” She gestured to the girl’s body, littered with gashes and burns. “Naegi-kun, have you found anything?”

“No, I — oh, crap!” Naegi accidentally pulled on the tape too hard, the adhesive jerking Hiyoko’s arm. A burned white object fell partially out of her sleeve, and Naegi picked it up. It was a singed envelope with the name “Togami Byakuya” clearly written on it in black ink. Naegi opened it and pulled the contents out. Inside the envelope was a picture of Togami undressing.

He grimaced at the picture, and Hinata went over to look at it. “Hey Naegi, where are you getting these kinds of things?” he asked. “I didn’t think you were interested in Togami.”

“I’m not!” he exclaimed indignantly. “I found it in an envelope in Hiyoko-san’s sleeve!”

“That’s it!” Ishimaru shouted. “The identity of the culprit can’t be any clearer! That has got to be her dying message, and the picture she was blackmailing Togami-kun with!”

“Let’s go, then,” Kirigiri said. “We’re running out of time, and we’ve already checked the thing that I wanted to look at.”

They went back down to the elevator to find that the mob at the courtroom had calmed down some. Everyone had backed away from the gallows, and Nanami was standing in the middle of the room, talking to them.

“Hey Nanami, _you_ were able to calm them down?” Hinata asked.

“If Chiaki-chan woke up to do something, it must be pretty important!” Mahiru called out.

“I woke up when they were trying to lynch him again,” Nanami explained. “You four were gone, and nobody else was going to step in, so I had to.”

“Okay, fine. Thank you, Nanami. I thought Komaeda was going to be dead for sure when we came back,” Hinata said.

“Why didn’t you tell us before we left? We could have left someone behind —” Naegi began to suggest, but Monobear cut him off.

“Well he’s not dead, is he? Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Yes! And now I know the whole truth about the case!” Ishimaru walked to the middle of the circle, replacing Nanami. “Listen up! I am about to tell you how the murder occurred. No questions until I’m done, understand?

“So, this started the day Monobear gave us motivation to kill each other! He took out envelopes with embarrassing photos of us, saying that if a murder didn’t happen soon, he would pass them amongst us. As he left, he dropped two of them, and Saionji-kun picked them up. Those two photos were of Naegi-kun and Togami-kun. She wrote them letters saying that if they didn’t become her bodyguards, she would show the pictures to everyone. 

“Naegi-kun didn’t take the threat to heart, but Togami-kun was extremely angry that someone would destroy his reputation like that. So last night or early this morning, he came across her and attacked. He slit her throat and killed her, but not before she could hide her dying message in her sleeve.” 

He took the picture of Togami and threw it to the students. They began passing it around, reacting in various ways to the picture. Some gasped in horror, and others started laughing. Leon in particular was laughing so hard that Maizono had to hit him to get him to stop.

When it was her turn to look at the picture, Touko’s eyes went wide and she blushed. “O-oh...” She tried to slip the picture into her sleeve, but Togami himself snatched it away and ripped it up.

The crowd was in an uproar. “ORDER!” Ishimaru yelled. “I must have order! The explanation is not over yet! Togami-kun decided to alter the crime scene by framing Komaeda-kun! He taped her to the floor in front of the cafeteria, making sure to cover the wound on her throat with tape. Then he burned her with his lighter and slashed her with a knife. For some reason, Komaeda-kun went along with it, almost causing him to be falsely executed earlier! And that’s it! The culprit can be none other than you, Togami-kun!”

The crowd grew silent, waiting for Togami’s reaction to the accusation, and react he did.

“How dare you,” he said slowly. “How dare you accuse me of being a murderer! All of this information is based off of something that you left the courtroom to fabricate, isn’t it? I don’t have to listen to anything that an idiot like you says. You aren’t even middle-class. You mean less than nothing to me.”

“Hey Togami-kun, that was uncalled for!” Naegi exclaimed, defending Ishimaru. “Ishimaru-kun is worth something. Everyone’s worth something!”

“Looks like it’s time to vote!” Monobar interrupted. “Everyone, vote for who you think the culprit is!”

Ishimaru returned to his stand and cast his vote for Togami. When the voting was done, Monobear summoned a large slot machine with the faces of every student on the reels. He pulled the lever, and the wheels started rolling, every single one stopping on Togami.

“Looks like you were right!” Monobear giggled. “And now...we have an extra-special execution for him!” He slammed the red button with his gavel again, and the floor opened up. The gallows descended and a giant guillotine came out, shaped like a giant pair of scissors. Touko cringed and looked away. “It’s just like the French Revolution! Togami, you have some French blood in you, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Togami replied. “But all of you are insane if you think you can get me to that guillotine.”

“Oh yeah?” Once again, Mondo grabbed the suspected culprit. However, unlike Komaeda, Togami was struggling, and it was hard for Mondo to keep his grip on him.

“Don’t touch me!” Togami demanded. “The likes of you should not be touching me! I am above all of you!”

Akane lunged forward and grabbed him, and together, she and Mondo managed to drag him to the guillotine. “Not so high and mighty now, huh Rich Guy?” she asked as she secured Togami at the bottom of the guillotine.

“You will pay dearly for this,” Togami said. “When my family learns of what you have done, they will hunt you down and kill you. It doesn’t matter if we’re trapped in this place, the Togami Conglomerate has eyes everywhere.”

The mob had formed again, people screaming and yelling at Togami, even throwing things and spitting in his face. However, none of them dared even approach the lever that would set off the guillotine and sever Togami’s neck and life.

Finally, Monobear couldn’t take it anymore. He had to keep the despair going by getting one of the students to kill Togami, and he knew just how to do it. “Ishimaru! Since you’re the one who discovered the culprit, you’re the one who’s going to execute him!”

Ishimaru didn’t move.

“Do it or it’ll be your head in the guillotine!”

With that threat, Ishimaru was spurred to movement. Time seemed to crawl by as he walked to the center of the room, everyone stepping aside to let him pass. His hand closed against the lever and he looked away, shutting his eyes. Most everyone did the same, Touko in particular turning around completely and throwing both her arms over her face, her glasses in one hand. 

If only this didn’t have to happen, Ishimaru thought. Maybe he could just not do it, free Togami from the guillotine or even break the execution machine itself, but Monobear’s red eye burned into his back. The small stuffed bear had all their lives in his paws, and if any of them crossed him they would suffer the consequences.

And so it was with that terribly hopeless feeling that Ishimaru pulled the lever. There was the gruesome sound of the scissors snapping shut on Togami’s neck, and then a small impact. Whimpers and cries came from the crowd.

He couldn’t look away forever, so Ishimaru steeled himself and looked at Togami. His head was on the ground, blood spilling from both stumps of his neck and from his slightly opened mouth. Slowly, people began to look, some of them flinching away in disgust and others petrified with horror, unable to look away.

“Well that’s it!” Monobear said cheerfully. “That bastard died because he couldn’t let go of his ego! Let that be a lesson to all of you!” With that, he pressed the button again. The guillotine receded into the floor, bringing Togami’s body with it. Ishimaru leaped off the platform before he could be brought down with all the execution machines. He didn’t want to know what horrible tortures awaited any murderers.

“All right, everyone should head on to their rooms now! Night Time is starting soon!” Monobear announced. He got off his chair and left the room, probably for the room where he made all his announcements.

“Well...maybe that will discourage anyone from murdering,” Naegi said weakly, still trying to be positive.

“No,” Aoi said glumly. “He’ll only make more motivations for us to do it, and someone might snap...”

“No! Don’t even make me think of it!” Souda yelled, pulling his beanie over his eyes.

Sensing the dangerous tension in the room, Ishimaru told everyone to just go back to their rooms. “It will be a new day tomorrow,” he promised. 

Slowly, people started going up the elevator a few at a time. Soon the only people left in the room were Touko and Ishimaru. Touko was curled in on herself, sobbing into her skirt.

Ishimaru laid a hand on her shoulder. “Fukawa-kun, would you like me to escort you back to your room?”

Her head snapped up, her face full of fury and hate. “NO!” she screamed. “You killed him! You killed my Byakuya-sama and I want nothing to do with you!” Touko leaped up and dashed to the elevator, and Ishimaru was alone.

When the elevator descended, he trudged onto it, his head down. Ishimaru couldn’t believe that he had just killed Togami. And for what, to save himself? He was terrible. He shouldn’t have been swayed so easily by Monobear.

But Togami himself was the murderer. What he had done was justice. He was the executioner, yes, but he was carrying out justice. A person like Togami was a threat to society! 

All Ishimaru had to do was keep telling himself that, and all would be good. He went to his room, removed his jacket and boots, and fell onto his bed. As he slept, the execution played over and over in his head. Like he had said, it would be a new day tomorrow.

At least he hoped it would be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and of course i killed togami, my favorite character —yosh


	2. A Favor Repaid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it only took me a month, but here —yosh
> 
> EDIT: that should be all the revisions, if it's not i really dont want to go through shit i wrote it's kinda awkward

As usual, Ishimaru woke up at six in the morning. The execution last night was emotionally draining on him, but that was no excuse for him to stray from his strict schedule. He had to wake up an hour before Monobear began the morning announcements so he could prepare for the day. On the first day they had been trapped in the school, he had taken it upon himself to check on the students who hadn’t gotten their own dorm rooms. These students only had tents in the gymnasium, and tents were no protection from murderers. It fell to him to make sure everybody was safe.

He got out of bed and was heading towards the door when his foot collided with something uncannily warm. Said foot got caught and he unceremoniously flew toward the ground, but got up immediately without even bothering to check what he had tripped over. There just wasn’t any time for that. Time wasted looking at things was time Ishimaru could be using to thwart any potential murders.

Taking his jacket, which was on the floor in front of the doorway, Ishimaru headed out of his room, putting the garment on and buttoning it as he went. He had forgotten his boots, but he had been in such a bad mood last night that instead of meticulously putting his clothes away, he had just thrown them on the floor.

When he entered the gym, Hinata was already up and waiting for him. “I want to thank you, Ishimaru,” he said.

“For helping with the trial? It’s the least I could do, I found the evidence, after all!”

“Not just that, you did it! He isn’t hanging around me anymore!” Hinata’s cryptic reply only served to confuse Ishimaru.

“Who isn’t hanging around you anymore?” Ishimaru asked. “What did I have to do with that?”

Hinata just shushed him. “I can’t talk about that now,” he said. “He’s here...”

Ishimaru was even more confused about that. “Who’s here? Who are you talking about?” But Hinata would say no more. He just shook his head and backed into his tent, mouthing something that looked like “I’m sorry”. 

Ishimaru shrugged it off and continued on his routine inspection, asking everyone to open their tents and if everyone was okay in there. Someone could take up Togami’s room, he realized, but refrained from saying it. It was disrespectful to Togami’s memory, and besides, the students just might kill each other for the chance to stay in a real room.

Everything was all good in the gymnasium, save for one thing. Komaeda’s tent was empty, and he was nowhere to be found. Since he had almost been falsely killed during the trial, Ishimaru was worried. Someone could have still been angry at him and decided to kill him. 

Apparently, he wasn’t in the gym, so Ishimaru headed back to the dorms. He had to cross all of the school to get there, so there was a big chance that he would run into Komaeda, and run into him he did in the halls of the dorm.

“What are you doing here?” Ishimaru asked. “You should be in the gymnasium until the morning announcement!”

Komaeda stopped in his tracks and turned around to answer Ishimaru. “I was just taking a walk,” he explained. “Don’t waste your time worrying about me.”

“No, there is reason to worry about you. Didn’t you notice how eager everyone was to kill you yesterday? If someone besides me had run into you, I think you’d be dead right now! Besides, we made the Night Time rule ourselves, did we not? Rules that we make ourselves are obviously important and should be valued!” Ishimaru thought that all rules should be valued, but somehow, rules that the students made themselves were some of the most important. They themselves had decided to follow the rule, rather than having it enforced upon them.

“Oh. I’m sorry, Ishimaru-kun. I’ll go back to the gym now.” Komaeda walked away, Ishimaru briefly watching him leave. Once he made sure that Komaeda was actually leaving, Ishimaru went into his room to take a shower. He didn’t see Komaeda turn the corner at the end of the dorm and stay there.

Ishimaru closed the door, took off his clothes, and laid them neatly on his bed. He was going to get into the shower soon, and besides, it wasn’t like anybody was going to come into the room. People like Komaeda were an aberration, but he knew that most of the people in the school would abide by the rules. Even if they didn’t strive to become model citizens, the rules were put in place for their own safety. Being outside at night made a person a perfect target for any murderers. 

He went into the shower room, draped his towel up on a hook on the door, and turned the shower on. As he was usually the first one up in the morning, the water was still frigid. He didn’t mind, the cold water did an amazing job at waking him up. Ishimaru began to scrub himself down, but stopped in the middle of it. He thought he had heard someone moving around in his room, but that couldn’t be right. That would mean that someone had gotten into his room. Ignoring it, he finished his shower. It could mean anything. The shower rooms might have not been soundproofed like the dorm rooms themselves were.

Wrapping a towel around his waist, Ishimaru walked out only to see Touko standing in the middle of his room, her hands behind her back. “Oh, Fukawa-kun!” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here t-to...” She brought her shaking hands forward, revealing a pair of scissors she was holding. “I’m here to kill you! The person who killed Byakuya-sama doesn’t deserve to live!”

“Now hold on!” Ishimaru exclaimed, backing towards the shower door. To be honest, he didn’t really fear Touko, as she didn’t seem like someone who was confident enough in themselves to actually carry out a murder. Even so, he had to be prepared to react. “Are you really going to murder someone just because they found out that Togami-kun was the culprit?”

Touko nodded frantically. “Of course I am! He should have graduated instead of dying in that horrible way!” She looked down at her scissors, the weapon Togami’s execution machine had been styled after. “Why couldn’t we have just...”

“Are you willing to die for Togami-kun?” Ishimaru asked. “If you kill me, someone’s eventually going to find out! Didn’t you see how Kirigiri-san, Hinata-kun, and Naegi-kun handled yesterday’s trial?”

“Yes!” Touko exclaimed. It was the most confidence that Ishimaru had ever heard in her voice, which was bad news for him. Now he definitely had to be on his guard.

After considering possible ways for him to escape, Ishimaru found that the best thing for him to do was to throw his towel at her and run away while she was busy dislodging it. Running naked through the school was a lot better than being murdered, at any rate.

“Now die!” Touko swung the scissors at Ishimaru, but hands closed around her arms, holding her back.

“Run, Ishimaru-kun!” Komaeda yelled. Somehow, he had gotten into the room and stopped the fight. 

However, Ishimaru did not run. He just stood there, shock and confusion rooting him to the spot. There were too many people in his room, and he had no idea how they had gotten in at all.

Touko was still struggling hard, screaming, “You p-pervert! Didn’t anybody tell you that you can’t just grab a lady like this?” She wrenched her right arm out of Komaeda’s grasp and stabbed her scissors into his forearm. Komaeda didn’t react in pain at all. In fact, Touko seemed to be more distressed at the act, refusing to even look at the wound. She pulled the scissors out, wrapped them in the hem of her skirt, and looked down.

“Fukawa-san, I can’t believe you would try and murder someone so soon after the last murder,” Komaeda chided. “How disappointing.”

At this, Touko turned and ran out of the room, leaving Ishimaru and Komaeda standing there.

“What...” Ishimaru managed to say. “What is this? She just tried to kill me!”

“Yes, I think that’s obvious,” Komaeda said, examining the scissors wound. It was a deep cut, but it didn’t really bother him that much. He had gotten it saving his savior, and therefore he would bear the pain.

On the other hand, Ishimaru was extremely worried about Komaeda. He took the welfare of all the other students seriously, and he decided to take it upon himself to treat the wound, especially since it was his fault that Komaeda had been stabbed. If he hadn’t left his door unlocked, this wouldn’t have happened.

Taking Komaeda’s arm, Ishimaru inspected the cut and realized the simple “antiseptic and bandage” treatment wouldn’t be enough. The wound was hanging open and most likely needed stitches. Ishimaru knew that stitches required specialized medical equipment, but there wasn’t any place in the school or the dorm building that had said equipment. Situations like this would require some improvisation, and Ishimaru remembered that all the girls — or all the girls who got dorm rooms — had sewing kits in their dorm rooms. This was in no way sterile, but it reduced the risk of infection much more than leaving the wound open or even bandaging it would.

“You need stitches,” he explained briefly, “but I can do that. I need to put some clothes on first.” Ishimaru took his clothes off his bed and went into the shower room to change. To be honest, he didn’t mind changing in front of others, but he realized that other people were usually very uncomfortable with him doing that.

He exited the shower room fully clothed, put his boots on, and left the room. Kirigiri’s room was directly across the hall from his, so he went there first. “Kirigiri-kun?” he called, knocking on the door. There was no response. Kirigiri was either asleep or out somewhere. If it was the latter, Ishimaru was going to have to speak with her about such a blatant violation of the rules. However, it wasn’t the time for that, so he just went on to the next closest room, Maizono’s. Fortunately, she was awake and opened the door for them.

“Oh...good morning, Ishimaru-kun. It’s a little early, though, isn’t it?” she asked.

“I need to borrow your sewing kit,” Ishimaru said. “Komaeda-kun...where is he? Anyway, he needs stitches.”

“Stitches?” Maizono asked. “What happened?”

“There was an accident with scissors,” said Komaeda, who was suddenly behind Ishimaru. He didn’t go into any more detail, just showing Sayaka the scissors wound was enough for her to break out the sewing kit. Ishimaru noticed that there also seemed to be several shallower wounds in Komaeda’s arm, but he remembered that Touko had only stabbed him once. Maybe she had stabbed Komaeda multiple times when Ishimaru wasn’t looking.

Ishimaru sat Komaeda down on Maizono’s bed, threaded one of the needles, and made a clean row of stitches across the large cut, closing it. The other small scratches didn’t need any treatment and would heal just fine on their own. He was actually well-versed in sewing, as it was a practical skill. It was slightly embarrassing for him to be good at something like that, but when Ishimaru learned a new skill, he worked hard to perfect it. Even if he couldn’t become the best at it, there was still no reason to slack off and not do everything he could to the best of his ability.

When Ishimaru was finished with the stitches, he cut the thread and threw the bloody needle in the trash. Taking another needle, he sewed the slash in Komaeda’s sleeve as well.

“Come on, Komaeda-kun,” he said, standing up. “I’m going to look for some antibiotic ointment in the storage room, I think I saw some.”

With that, they went to the storage room, and Ishimaru searched through the shelves, looking for antibiotic cream. He didn’t let Komaeda help him because the shelves were dirty, which meant that the wound could be infected if he was allowed to search. The fact that Ishimaru had to use a regular needle and thread instead of sterile equipment made for suturing was bad enough.

He finally found the antibiotic ointment behind a pack of soda. It was a small jar, but he didn’t need much, and hopefully, nobody would need much. Ishimaru spread a thin layer of the ointment over Komaeda’s stitches and sighed.

“Well, thank you for saving me!” he said. “If you thought you owed me some kind of favor for yesterday’s trial, this will do. After all, we saved each other from getting killed!”

“It was no problem, Ishimaru-kun,” Komaeda said. “It would be...worthwhile to use my life to save someone meaningful like you. Even if you do believe that hard work can somehow save a person from worthlessness.”

“Don’t talk about hard work like that!” Ishimaru yelled. “There are many people in the world, people that you’d call worthless, that became great by the means of hard work! There are...I don’t want to start an argument, but I implore you to reconsider your opinion on hard work!” Suddenly the screens located all around the dorm building blinked to life, bringing with them the beginning of a new day. Ishimaru headed to the cafeteria, as per usual. Running the morning meeting was his job, and it also provided an opportunity to check and see if everyone was safe and accounted for.

People began filing into the cafeteria, and despite the massive overflow — there weren’t enough tables in the cafeteria to seat everyone — Ishimaru felt as if someone was missing. He wrote it off as being due to the deaths of Hiyoko and Togami, which had only happened the previous day. There couldn’t be a missing person, it was too soon after the last trial for anyone to attempt murder, even if Touko had tried.

His fears were confirmed when Naegi came up to him with a worried expression. “Ishimaru-kun, I don’t see Fukawa-san anywhere in here!” he said.

“Come with me then! We have to find her,” Ishimaru said. “I was going to check on her, but I was busy elsewhere.” Besides, if he tried to check on her, she would probably attempt to kill him again.

“We should check her room first,” Naegi said as they walked out of the cafeteria and to the hall where the dorms were. Surprisingly, the door was unlocked, and they went right in. The first thing they saw was Touko slumped over on the floor, unmoving. A large pink sheet lay across her, covering most of her body. A small glinting object lay a few feet away from the body.

The speakers came on again, this time proclaiming “A dead body has been found!” Everyone was instructed to gather at the gym to receive the file with information about her death.

“Wait a second!” Ishimaru exclaimed. “Isn’t the message triggered by three people finding the body? There are only two of us here!”

“There are three people here,” said someone behind them. Ishimaru turned around to see Komaeda standing in the doorway. His sudden appearance in random places was really starting to unnerve Ishimaru.

“What are you doing here!” Ishimaru exclaimed. “Nobody else was allowed to leave the cafeteria!”

“It’s not Night Time anymore,” Komaeda said, “and besides, after what happened, I didn’t think it was a good idea for you to go alone.”

“Well I’m here!” Naegi retorted. “Anyway, let’s just go to the gym already and get the file.”

They headed to the gym, where Naegi picked up Monobear File #2. The file contained information similar to the first file — the victim’s name and their time of death. However, it also listed the cause of death. “Fukawa Touko. Died at 6:52 AM,” Naegi read. “Well, there’s no cause of death in here,” he noticed.

“Maybe it’s important! It’s what helped us figure out that Togami-kun was the culprit last time,” Ishimaru said. “So, I guess we should go back and investigate!”

Upon returning to Touko’s room, Naegi went straight to her body for his investigation while Ishimaru searched the room. Ishimaru’s investigation revealed next to nothing — everything in Touko’s room was in order, so she had either been taken by surprise or had made no attempt to fight back, which was surprising given her uncharacteristically violent attack earlier that morning. However, her bed was missing its sheet. Incidentally, the metal object Ishimaru had previously seen on the ground was gone. He couldn’t find it, no matter how meticulously he searched the floor.

Naegi’s investigation yielded similar results. The most obvious injury was the sheet tied around Touko’s neck. The sheet was secured with a tight knot that Naegi couldn’t undo, and he could see her skin darkening around the edges of the sheet. Similar bruising was displayed under her eyes. However, since the sheet was so obvious, Naegi didn’t believe that she had died from strangulation. The culprit had most likely strangled Touko with the sheet post-mortem to divert attention away from the real cause of death.

He brushed the rest of the bedsheet to the side and began inspecting her body. The sole wound was a puncture made by a pair of scissors slipping between her ribs and stabbing her right lung. Her dark school uniform masked any bloodstains, and when Naegi pressed his hand on the area surrounding the wound, he found that there wasn’t much blood there in the first place.

“Naegi-kun, have you found any evidence?” Ishimaru asked. “I’ve been looking around the room, and there’s nothing out of place! Fukawa-san died without fighting back, it seems. It looks like the bedsheet is gone, though. That has to be what the culprit used to choke her with!”

“That’s not how she really died, the sheet is there to mislead us. I found the real murder weapon.” Naegi moved aside so Ishimaru could see the scissors lodged in Touko’s chest. “It’s these scissors...strange, they don’t look like any scissors I’ve seen before. I guess that doesn’t matter though, a murder weapon is a murder weapon!”

While Naegi had never seen the scissors, Ishimaru recognized them well. After all, it was hard to forget the weapon that had almost killed him half an hour ago. “I recognize those scissors!” he exclaimed. “This morning, she almost killed me with them!”

“What?” Naegi asked. “Can you tell me about it, Ishimaru-kun?”

“Yes. So, earlier this morning, I was taking a shower, but it seems that I forgot to lock the door. When I came out, Fukawa-kun was in my room, and she wanted to kill me for executing Togami-kun. She attacked me with those scissors, but Komaeda-kun came into the room and saved me, and Fukawa-kun ran away after that.”

“Hm...When did this happen?”

“Around six forty-five.”

Naegi thought over this for a while. “That means...you must be the culprit, Ishimaru-kun! Six forty-five...that gave you fifteen minutes to be unaccounted for! You’d certainly have the motivation to attack her if she had tried to kill you before.”

“What?” Ishimaru exclaimed. How had Naegi reached that conclusion?

“It looks like we don’t have to do much,” Naegi called out to Kirigiri and Hinata, who were standing in the doorway. “I already know that Ishimaru-kun is the culprit. His own testimony actually gave it away!”

“Is that so? Well, I guess we should get this over with.” Hinata sighed. “I can’t believe Ishimaru would kill someone, he did help us with the trial yesterday.”

“I didn’t!” Ishimaru protested. “She tried to kill me, and when I came here she was dead! I had no idea this happened! Just ask Komaeda-kun, he was with me the entire time from when Fukawa-kun attacked me to the morning meeting!”

Komaeda — who was suddenly in the room again, or had he not gone to the gym — nodded, but Hinata didn’t accept using him as a witness. “Sorry, but anything Komaeda says isn’t reliable. He has problems.”

Ishimaru attempted to protest again, but Naegi cut him off. “You can debate at the trial, here you’re just wasting time.” It was rather surprising to see Naegi so blatantly disgusted at Ishimaru’s perceived actions. In the short time they had known each other, Ishimaru had noticed that Naegi had always seen the best in everyone, but now it seemed that Naegi saw nothing good in him.

“Naegi-kun, are you sure that’s everything you can figure out?” Kirigiri asked. Ishimaru let out a sigh of relief. Perhaps there was still hope that he would survive this encounter. After all, Kirigiri had proved herself as a skilled investigator during the last trial. One could almost say she had a talent for it. There was no way Naegi would —

“It looks like there’s nothing else to figure out, though,” Naegi replied. “We investigated the body and the room, which didn’t give us much evidence. Ishimaru-kun gave me his testimony, and it looks like there isn’t anyone else who was up at the time.”

“Actually, I was away checking on something this morning, but that’s irrelevant,” Kirigiri replied. “If that’s all you have, then we should proceed to the trial.”

There would be no recovery from that, Ishimaru realized. Hinata, Kirigiri, and Naegi were completely convinced of his guilt. He remembered being among them that night, and how they had essentially controlled the trial. Once they had discovered the evidence, everyone had suddenly switched from being eager to punish Komaeda to being eager to punish Togami. Mob mentality was a dangerous thing, and it was about to be turned against Ishimaru. He found himself fearing what kind of execution was in store for him. Togami’s execution had held a hint of irony about it, so Ishimaru guessed that he would simply be beaten to death. Or there would be no guidelines on how to kill him as long as he ended up dead, anarchy at its finest.

Of course, he wasn’t the real culprit, so if he was falsely accused and ended up dying, everyone save the actual culprit would be executed as well. Ishimaru had no idea who that was, besides the fact that it wasn’t him or Komaeda. If he could convince everyone that he hadn’t killed Touko, maybe they could get a proper investigation underway, one that wasn’t tainted by bias. However, Naegi, Kirigiri, and Hinata seemed unwilling to listen to reason, wanting the upcoming trial to go by as quickly as possible. The last trial had been an upsetting experience for everyone involved and Ishimaru could see why they’d want it over soon, but their hastiness was going to get almost everybody killed.

They walked to the elevator leading to the trial room, Hinata, Naegi, and Kirigiri flanking Ishimaru as if he was being taken into custody. In a way, he was. This would be more like a real trial, with everyone trying to figure out if he was guilty or not. Somehow, he would figure it out and make the others see that he had not in fact killed Touko. If he tried his hardest to defend himself, he would certainly make them realize his innocence in the case.

Surprisingly, everyone had already crowded into the elevator room. As soon as Ishimaru’s entourage set foot in the room, Monobear popped up. He made a huge show of yawning and acting like he had just woken up, which fooled nobody. After all, he did broadcast the morning announcement every day, unless that was pre-recorded.

“Hm...that was fast! I’m impressed!” Monobear laughed. “You bastards are really anxious to get out of here, aren’t you? Well that’s just fine with me!”

Everyone piled into the elevator, and it descended to the trial room again. The room appeared to be half-finished, with new wallpaper on one side of the room and the other side of the room left with the old decor. 

“Please excuse the room being under construction,” Monobear announced. “Normally, the room would look different for every trial, but because the next death happened so soon, I didn’t have time to set everything up! Well, what are you waiting for? Everybody, to your places!”

Like before, crossed-out portraits of the dead students occupied where they had once stood. Touko’s portrait had now joined their ranks, and Ishimaru felt a chill at realizing that this could be him. Actually, it wouldn’t be. Everyone besides the real murderer would die for executing the wrong person, and by that time, it would be near-useless to put up the portraits. It wasn’t like there was going to be another trial.

Well, that was a small comfort, in fact it was one of the smallest comforts Ishimaru could be given. Sure, he might be executed, but at least his portrait wouldn’t go up in the trial room.

“So, let’s start with what we know,” he said. Even though he was the suspect, Ishimaru was still the unofficial leader. Besides, only Naegi really suspected him. “This morning, right before Day Time began, Fukawa-kun was killed!”

“Yes, and I know who it is!” Naegi replied. He was annoyed that Ishimaru was playing along and pretending to be oblivious. As obsessed as he seemed to be with justice, Ishimaru didn’t want to turn himself in, it seemed. Justice only appeared to be Ishimaru’s thing when it wasn’t turning against him.

“Really?” Leon asked. “Well let’s hear it already!”

“It’s Ishimaru-kun!” Naegi’s statement came as a surprise to most people in the room. Hadn’t Ishimaru helped out with the investigation yesterday? Hadn’t he been the one to execute Togami? Ishimaru knew the consequences of murder extremely well. Then why had he killed someone, and so soon after the first trial? 

“It’s not me!” Ishimaru protested.

Ignoring him, Naegi began presenting his evidence. “Earlier this morning, Fukawa-san attacked Ishimaru-kun. She wanted revenge on him for executing Togami-kun. She failed, and Ishimaru-kun went after her and killed her, instead!”

“And how did you come up with that?” Ishimaru asked. “Do you have any evidence?”

“You talked about that attack yourself! Isn’t that right, Kirigiri-san?” Naegi looked over to Kirigiri, who just nodded. “It’s easy to see why you would want to kill her, Ishimaru-kun. She attacked you, so why not make sure she doesn’t do it again? You’re the only one who’s up early every day.”

“But I didn’t!” Ishimaru looked around frantically, studying everyone’s expressions to see if anybody had gotten the idea of killing him yet. “I was up early because I was busy! I would never even consider such a thing as murdering anybody! That’s illegal!”

“Then what were you doing after Fukawa-san attacked you?” Kirigiri asked.

“Well, when I was attacked, Komaeda-kun came in and saved me. Fukawa-kun stabbed him, so I had to treat his wound,” Ishimaru explained. “When I was done, the morning announcement began, and I had to hurry to the cafeteria! There wouldn’t be any time for me to kill anyone!”

“Is that so...Komaeda-kun, can you tell me what happened?” Kirigiri requested.

Hinata scoffed. “Don’t even bother with him, he’ll just say something weird or say he’s the culprit again.”

“Sure,” said Komaeda. “I killed her.”

“What!” Ishimaru exclaimed. When had Komaeda gotten the time to kill her? He had been with Ishimaru the entire time — well, no he hadn’t. Ishimaru distinctly remembered wondering where Komaeda was when he had visited Maizono’s room. That could have been enough time for him to kill Touko. Besides, that entire morning Ishimaru had noticed that Komaeda had seemed to appear from out of nowhere. He could have been off doing other things the whole time, such as setting up the whole scene.

“See, I told you,” Hinata said. “Kirigiri, I think you should ignore him and keep discussing this. It looks more like Ishimaru is the culprit, like Naegi said. He had enough motivation, plus time to do it. I saw him this morning during inspection for about five minutes. Who knows what he does after that?”

“Well, that was far before the attack!” Ishimaru said. “After inspections, I usually take a shower and then stay in my room until the morning announcement! However, Fukawa-kun stabbed Komaeda-kun, so I had to take care of that!” Everyone stared at him. His vague statement could mean that he took care of the problem by killing Touko. “I mean I stitched up Komaeda-kun’s wound,” Ishimaru clarified.

“What wound?” Kirigiri asked Ishimaru.

Ishimaru was about to respond, but Komaeda cut him off. “That’s true. Fukawa-san succumbed to despair already after her beloved one was killed...how was I not supposed to kill her? She thought killing Ishimaru-kun would even everything out, but that wasn’t right. I stopped her attack, but she stabbed me instead.” Komaeda rolled up his sleeve, showing everyone the threads that crisscrossed the slash on his forearm. “That was my motivation! Not only did she attack me, but she tried to spread despair!”

Kirigiri was completely uninterested in Komaeda’s attempts to incriminate himself. They had to figure out exactly how the murder had been carried out before they could go ahead and name anybody as the culprit. “Hold on,” she said. “We should go through everything we know about the case before we go around accusing anybody. That goes for you as well, Naegi-kun. Now, what kind of weapon did Fukawa-san use?”

“Scissors!” Ishimaru answered. “Those same scissors were found lodged in her chest when Naegi-kun and I investigated the body.”

“So when Fukawa-san ran away, she must have dropped them,” Naegi said. “Then you — or whoever the culprit is — picked them up and killed her with them.”

Even though Naegi had made an effort to not act as if they had already labeled him as the culprit, Ishimaru still felt the need to defend himself. “Are you sure she died from the scissors? I remember a shiny object being in Fukawa-kun’s room when we first went there. When we came back, it was gone. I even searched the whole room!”

“Are you sure those were the scissors?” Naegi asked, recalling what the room had looked like. “Her body was covered by that sheet. We wouldn’t have been able to see if the scissors were there.”

“Speaking of which, what was the state of the body?” Kirigiri questioned. “We still need to figure out —”

“There’s nothing left to figure out!” Komaeda yelled. “She attacked me and I killed her. That’s it.”

Ignoring him, Kirigiri asked again, “Naegi-kun, Ishimaru-kun, can one of you tell me about the state of the body?”

Since he had investigated the body, Naegi answered her. “There was only one wound, and that was the scissors. They had been stabbed in Fukawa-san’s chest. Someone also tied a bedsheet around her throat. There was bruising around her throat and under her eyes from that. So the culprit either stabbed her and then choked her, or choked her and then stabbed her.”

Kirigiri simply nodded and thought over everything. The courtroom quickly became silent, as not many others had much to say about the case. Moments later, everyone started talking again. As long as they weren’t doing anything, they could afford to talk amongst each other.

Ishimaru, however, didn’t feel like talking. He was too busy being worried over if he would die or not. Kirigiri seemed content enough to withhold any accusations, but Naegi had been arguing that he was the culprit all day. As for Hinata, Ishimaru had no clue, but he seemed skeptical about the whole deal. That could either help Ishimaru or harm him, but it looked like Hinata would be against him. After all, he had ignored Komaeda’s claim that he was the killer.

Even so, Komaeda probably wasn’t the culprit, either. He had been with Ishimaru for most of the morning. There would have been no time for him to slip away and kill Touko. However, Ishimaru remembered the smaller cuts in Komaeda’s forearm. Touko had definitely stabbed him only once — she had all but shut down after the one attack. Ishimaru had noticed these wounds when they had went to Sayaka’s room...and Komaeda had disappeared after they had gone to Kirigiri’s room. He could have gotten in a fight with Touko at that time, gaining those other cuts on his arm in the process.

_That can’t be right,_ Ishimaru thought. It couldn’t be Komaeda. Besides, he didn’t have any reason to kill her. Ishimaru refused to believe that anybody would just kill with no ulterior motive. The murder itself a horrible act in and of itself, but having no reason to do it was an even more heinous thing. All things considered, Ishimaru didn’t think the person who had saved him from being killed would really go out and kill Touko for no real reason.

“I think I understand now,” Kirigiri finally said. “The way Fukawa-san died is —”

“I killed her!” Komaeda yelled. “Right after Fukawa-san stabbed me, Ishimaru-kun went to get some help. I went after Fukawa-san, took her scissors, and stabbed her with them! That’s how she died!”

“You’ve got that wrong,” Kirigiri replied.

“What?”

“The scissors are probably not what killed her,” Kirigiri said. “Fukawa-san died from being strangled by the bedsheet. Naegi-kun said there were bruises under her eyes. Those bruises are caused by asphyxiation. And since you didn’t know the proper cause of death, that means you are not the culprit.”

“Then why was Fukawa-san stabbed with the scissors?” Naegi asked. “Whoever did it must have done it after she died. She would surely die of blood loss faster than she would die of air loss.”

“Then that thing on the floor that I saw must have been the scissors all along!” Ishimaru realized. “I don’t remember Komaeda-kun going with us to the gym. He could have stayed behind and stabbed her to make his claim more believable.”

“Yes, but you do realize this makes you seem like culprit right?” Naegi asked. “Until now, the suspects were you and Komaeda-kun, and we’ve ruled him out since he didn’t know the cause of death. Besides, you saved him from dying last time, so maybe he’s trying to do the same thing for you. The fact that you knew about Komaeda-kun using the scissors as a fake clue is suspicious, too.”

“You think being able to deduce things is suspicious? Then you must think Kirigiri-san is the most suspicious one here!” Ishimaru exclaimed.

“No,” Naegi replied, “but you’re still the most likely culprit. You’re consistently up all morning, and you still had decent enough motivation to do it.”

“I would have had no time!” Ishimaru exclaimed. “I was at Maizono-kun’s room stitching together Komaeda-kun’s arm!”

“You were? Maizono-san, is this true?”

“It is,” Maizono answered. “They came in this morning to use my sewing kit.”

“Oh,” said Naegi, his voice losing its accusatory tone. “Did they stay there until the morning announcement?”

“No, they left a few minutes before it,” Sayaka said. “Ishimaru-kun says he was going to the storage room.”

“Well, maybe he went to kill Fukawa-san instead,” Naegi replied, albeit weakly. 

Kirigiri said, “No, I don’t think so. Asphyxiation takes a long time to kill someone, and she was found dead right after the morning announcement. It probably wasn’t Ishimaru-kun, then.”

“That only leaves one person,” Hinata announced. “Fukawa killed herself! I don’t know why, but she’s the only one who could have done it.”

“Let’s vote, already!” Ishimaru exclaimed, glad that he was finally in the clear. This only made people suspect him again. “Well, don’t you want to get this over with?”

When the voting was done, Monobear brought out the slot machine again. All three reels stopped on the picture of Touko.

“You’re right again, bastards! You’re on a roll!” he exclaimed. “There’s going to be no execution today then. Aww, I was hoping to see some excitement!” Monobear giggled. “Well, there’s always next time! You’re all free to go! Enjoy the rest of your day!”

In contrast to the mood of yesterday’s execution, everyone seemed relieved. Touko’s suicide was still a tragedy, but it was better than having a murder and seeing someone killed before their eyes, as well.

“Thank you for trying to help me,” Ishimaru said to Komaeda as they left the courtroom. “It’s not the way I really wanted to get help, but I appreciate your effort.

Komaeda shrugged. “It was the least I could do. After all, you did save my life yesterday, so why shouldn’t I try to do the same?”

With a nod at Komaeda, Ishimaru headed for the cafeteria to begin the morning meeting again. _It will be a good day,_ he decided. _We need at least one of those._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and once again the body is messed with post-mortem. these guys sure are creative, aren't they? —yosh
> 
> EDIT [7-16]:  
> oh wow what, inaccuracies up the ASS. the water should be turned off during night time, so ishimaru couldn't shower. Also, the storage room is already open because a trial happened, but ishimaru wouldn't know about it normally, and "i think i saw some" implies he's been there before.
> 
> i guess the changes are because of the doubled class size, like the executions were changed. yeah, that's it. —yosh


	3. Brothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> gratuitous fluff and awkward boners

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no excuse for why this took so long, sorry — yosh

The morning meeting had barely started when Monobear appeared in the middle of the cafeteria. Many recoiled at the sight of him, fearing whatever horrible news he was sure to bring. What he said defied everyone’s expectations.

“I opened the second floor!” he announced. “Actually, I did it this morning. After every trial, a new floor opens up, but you only get one since today’s trial was so soon after the last one. I can’t have you all being greedy bastards! There are also rooms on this floor that are now open.” Monobear left the cafeteria, only to rush in seconds later. “Oh, I almost forgot! Touko Fukawa...was the serial killer Genocider Syo! So don’t act so sad about her death, at least one good thing came out of it! I’ll see you bastards later!”

Nobody knew exactly how to respond to that. Surely Monobear had to be joking about that. There was no way Touko could be a serial killer. Someone who was afraid of blood wouldn’t be able to kill a person, let alone kill them brutally and then write a message in blood nearby. 

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Hagakure asked. “Let’s go see what’s open!”

“Come on, Maizono-san!” Naegi exclaimed. “We should go see the second floor.” He got up and left the cafeteria, Sayaka following.

“Hey, wait for us!” Hinata stood up and bolted out of the cafeteria. Kirigiri left to run after them, as well.

Ishimaru wanted to go with them, but he had a job to do. He couldn’t leave before the morning meeting was officially over. In fact, the right thing to do was to punish Naegi, Sayaka, Kirigiri, and Hinata for leaving the meeting early. “Come back here!” he called out, but they were too far away to hear him.

The morning meeting would not be over until everyone left. That was the criteria Ishimaru had decided to set, anyway. He would tell everyone that they were free to go, then wait until everybody was gone to finally exit the cafeteria. As usual, he told everyone they could go, sat, and waited. Since there was something new to see, everyone got up and left at once — everyone except one person.

Komaeda remained in his seat, looking at Ishimaru expectantly. He didn’t seem to want to move at all, and Ishimaru was beginning to feel impatient. He remembered that something that looked like a public bath had been blocked off, and Ishimaru was a fan of public baths.

“Aren’t you going to explore the second floor?” Ishimaru asked. “Practically everyone else is off doing that exact thing!”

“It’s going to be too loud up there,” Komaeda said. “I’d rather stay down here.”

“Well...” Ishimaru tried to think of an explanation that wouldn’t offend Komaeda. “Don’t be antisocial! Bonding with your peers is very important, you know. You can’t just sit here all day, you have to at least try to talk to someone.”

“You’re not the most social person yourself,” Komaeda pointed out.

“At least I try!” Ishimaru exclaimed, taken aback. “It’s not my fault if nobody wants to talk to me.”

“Fair enough.” To Ishimaru’s disappointment, Komaeda still didn’t move. If this kept up, he would have to resort to being honest.

“Well, he also said there are areas on this floor that we can now go to, like the public bath. I want to go there, but rules are rules and I can’t just leave you here. Do you want to come with me?” Ishimaru offered.

“Maybe.” 

Even with his horrible social skills, Ishimaru knew that “maybe” was just a polite way of declining an offer. He stood up and walked to the doorway, looking out at the rest of the building. This was becoming ridiculous. “Just so you know, I might have to break this self-imposed rule. I don’t like to do this, but if you continue to be noncompliant I have no choice, and you should feel terrible for making me do —”

“Okay, okay, I’ll go!” Komaeda exclaimed, not wanting to listen to Ishimaru’s rant, which seemed to be attempting a guilt-trip. “It’s not like there aren’t enough things for me to feel terrible about already.”

It was said lightly, but Ishimaru was still concerned about that statement. What kind of things had Komaeda been referring to? “Wait, what?”

“Nothing. Are we going to go now, or what?” Komaeda asked. 

“Yes, we can go now,” Ishimaru said, heading out of the cafeteria and to the public bath.

They arrived in a room with small square lockers lining the walls with benches in front of them, a typical locker room. Across the room was the entrance to the public bath. Ishimaru went ahead to check it out. There were several showers and pools to bathe in, and across the room was another door. Ishimaru crossed the room and opened the door, which lead to a sauna.

“Good news!” he said to Komaeda as he returned. “There’s a sauna here. You and I can have the ultimate bonding experience in there!” He began undoing the buttons on his jacket.

“Wait, _what?_ ” Komaeda asked, stumbling backwards. The implications of what Ishimaru was saying, coupled with his sudden removal of clothes, were more than a little disturbing.

“What’s wrong? Did I — oh, _no!_ That is not my intention at all! I would never do something like that!” Ishimaru insisted, realizing how his words had been interpreted. “By bonding, I mean that we would sit around and talk and learn more about each other!”

“But you’re...taking off your clothes,” Komaeda pointed out.

“It’s only part of the bonding experience,” Ishimaru explained. “In fact, getting naked with someone is truly the best way to bond!”

“That’s...interesting,” was all Komaeda had to say on the matter. Ishimaru was the only person who actually made an effort to be friends with him, even if his attempts were strange and over-the-top. However, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and since nobody else even wanted to talk to him, Komaeda would just have to handle whatever strange things Ishimaru did. And to be perfectly honest, he didn’t mind Ishimaru’s oddities as much as he thought he would.

While he had been caught up in his thoughts, Ishimaru had already went to the sauna. As soon as he snapped out of it, Komaeda noticed he was gone, changed out of his clothes and wrapped a towel around his waist, and went after him. In his hurry to follow Ishimaru, he almost slipped on the damp floor of the public bath. Nonetheless, he managed to get into the sauna and sit down next to Ishimaru without any other accidents or near-accidents occurring.

“There you are!” Ishimaru said. “I was beginning to think you didn’t want to spend any time with me at all!”

“I don’t,” Komaeda replied. When Ishimaru looked slightly hurt, he quickly added, “I mean, I don’t not want to spend time with you! I was just thinking of something.”

“All right.” Ishimaru looked over at Komaeda, who seemed uneasy with his surroundings. He sat very stiffly, as if afraid to relax in the hazy room. Dark bruises and red marks stood out against his skin, which Ishimaru had not seen previously. The wound Touko had given him was still prominent, the black threads crisscrossing it another point of contrast to his pale skin. Ishimaru was concerned about the state of Komaeda’s body — if he dropped dead that instant, the others would surely begin to think the bruises and cuts were caused by whoever killed him.

“What happened to you?” he asked.

“Oh, this? If you remember what was almost my execution, everyone wasn’t exactly handling me gently,” Komaeda said. He shrugged. “I don’t really care, they seemed to be so hopeful that punishing me would get us closer to escaping this place.”

“It wouldn’t, though, we would all just die for executing the wrong person. And I care about what happened to you,” Ishimaru admitted.

“...You do? Why would you do that.” Komaeda smiled a little, as if what Ishimaru said had been somehow amusing. “I don’t even care about what happened to me.”

“Because I’m your friend,” Ishimaru said. “I mean...we are friends, aren’t we?” It wasn’t a term he wanted to throw around lightly. He had never actually had any friends, and assuming he meant more to a person than he actually did never ended well. The person he assumed was his friend often admitted that they really found him overbearing, and over the years Ishimaru began to believe that he was unworthy of friendship. It was something for people who weren’t him, people who weren’t tasked with the burdensome but honorable job of keeping order in the society.

“If you want,” Komaeda replied. “I’m sure you’ll become disgusted with me and regret asking that. Someday.”

Ishimaru shook his head. “No, I won’t. I know what it’s like to be alone. It’s something I wouldn’t wish on anyone! So, please, I don’t mind being your friend!”

“...All right then,” Komaeda said. “It’s an honor to be a friend of one of you Super High-School Levels. Actually, I’m so happy I could —” He suddenly slumped over, and Ishimaru jumped back.

“Komaeda-kun! What was that?” Ishimaru yelled. Komaeda did not move, he was out cold. Ishimaru figured the heat had been too much for him. It wasn’t too hot in his opinion, but, Komaeda did look abnormally frail. There was only one thing to do, get him out of there. Ishimaru very carefully picked up Komaeda and left the sauna, heading for the locker room. He briefly put Komaeda down on the floor to change, then picked him up again along with his clothes. On the way out he ran into Hinata. “Hello, Hinata-kun!” he said like nothing was amiss. “I trust that you and the others are behaving well, as always?”

Hinata looked them over, wondering what exactly had happened that had resulted in Ishimaru having to carry an unconscious and half-naked Komaeda out of the public bath. He grimaced. The possibilities he had come up with were disturbing. “Ishimaru, you...” Hinata was too shocked to come up with an intelligible reply, and so instead of replying, he hastily absconded. Besides, he didn’t want to discourage Ishimaru’s efforts in creating a friendship with Komaeda, which was what he thought had been happening back there in some strange way. It was better Ishimaru had to deal with it than him, anyway.

Ishimaru watched Hinata disappear into the halls, then decided to walk back to his dorm room. He didn’t want to leave Komaeda in his tent, where he would be an easy target for murders. Ishimaru’s room on the other hand had some distinct advantages, like being an actual room with an actual door that actually locked. Ishimaru opened the door with some difficulty and put Komaeda down on the bed. He locked the door, then neatly folded Komaeda’s clothes and put them on the circular table somewhere in front of the bed, where Komaeda could easily locate them when he woke up.

As for Ishimaru himself, he sat on the floor and waited. There was nothing else he wanted to do outside, besides receive reports from the others about what was on the second floor. He had forgotten to tell the others to report to him, anyway, and so they probably wouldn’t know to tell him. Besides, Komaeda was now his responsibility. Ishimaru felt the need to directly make sure nobody murdered Komaeda because it was his fault that he had even passed out in the first place. If Ishimaru hadn’t suggested they go in the sauna, Komaeda would have been fine.

Hours passed and Komaeda didn’t move at all. Ishimaru was beginning to worry about him. He could be dead, for all Ishimaru knew. And if that was true, that might mean Ishimaru was the culprit. Again, it was because of him that Komaeda lost consciousness in the sauna. Dread stirred in Ishimaru’s chest. He didn’t know for sure that he was the culprit, or if Komaeda was even dead, but the very possibility horrified him. He was a terrible person, and an even worse friend. The others would have to know, he already made up his mind to accept his punishment. In fact, he was on the verge of leaving the room and telling everyone about what he did when he heard Komaeda stir. He didn’t wake up, but at least Ishimaru knew he was alive.

There was no way for them to tell what time it was, other than the intercom messages at the beginning of day and night, which happened at seven AM and ten PM respectively. The hours in between were just unrecorded, unless someone had a timekeeping device on them. Actually, Ishimaru happened to have a wristwatch. He checked it and the results were not good — it was ten minutes from Night Time, and if Komaeda didn’t wake up before then, he didn’t know what he would do. Well, Ishimaru knew he would have to sleep on the floor in that case, but he didn’t find that outcome to be very favorable for him at all.

Ishimaru sat and stared at the bed, waiting for something to happen. He was coming close to just waking Komaeda up and telling him to sleep somewhere else, or better yet dumping him in his tent at the gym, but that would be lazily casting off his responsibilities, and lazy was the last thing Ishimaru wanted to be.

The intercom turned on, and Monobear announced the start of Night Time and that the cafeteria was to be off-limits, as per usual. Sighing, Ishimaru took off his jacket, folded it into a bundle, and lay down on the floor, using it as a pillow. He may have not regretted his decision to protect Komaeda from murder attempts, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t allowed to be disappointed about having to sleep on the floor. After all, this was _his_ room. 

Ishimaru recalled a promise he had made the previous night, one he had made to himself. It was a promise of a new day, but that hadn’t panned out well. There had been another murder and a trial, but at least no execution. He had almost been executed, but had managed to escape with Kirigiri’s revelation that it had been a suicide. Had it really been that morning? It seemed like a million years ago since he had been attacked by Touko after stepping out of the shower. It seemed like a billion years ago since he had last seen his family and even the outside world. Already their faces were beginning to fade from his mind. Ishimaru was horrified by the fact that he could forget his family so easily. It didn’t seem like he could really hold on to their memories, and he didn’t even know if he would ever see them again. The only way he could was if he murdered someone, and he wasn’t even going to contemplate that possibility. It was too unspeakable.

Ishimaru was spared from his dark thoughts by sleep, which finally overtook him.

Komaeda woke up a few hours later, surprised to find that he was lying on an actual bed instead of the floor, where he had been sleeping since had arrived at Hope’s Peak. At first he didn’t know where he was, but on the floor next to the bed he saw Ishimaru sleeping and assumed it was his room. It was then that he realized how cold it was, and that he wasn’t wearing anything. The only thing he had was a towel around his waist. However, a quick inspection of the room revealed that his clothes had been folded up and put on the table a short ways in front of the bed. Getting up, he quickly went over to the table and dressed. Now that the pressing matter of temperature was fixed, Komaeda had time to sit back and wonder as to exactly what had happened.

He knew he was now in Ishimaru’s room, and that the room’s owner was sleeping on the ground. From that, he could assume it was Night Time. He could go back to his tent now, Ishimaru had served his purpose, which had been nice. The fact that someone cared enough go to such lengths to make sure he was safe was new to him. He didn’t know what to think of it, but he did know that it wasn’t right to leave Ishimaru asleep on the floor like this when it was his room. 

Ishimaru was lying flat on his back, which looked to Komaeda like a very uncomfortable position to sleep in. He attributed to the fact that Ishimaru was sleeping on the floor, and hurried to get him onto the bed. He picked up Ishimaru, put him on the bed, and went to leave. 

“No, don’t leave me alone!”

Komaeda turned around. He had only went a few steps away from the bed when Ishimaru had cried out like that. When he had been carrying Ishimaru, he hadn’t notice him stir or anything, and so he didn’t know if he had woken up or was having a bad dream. Awake or asleep, that was kind of worrying, and so Komaeda decided he would stay for a while to make sure Ishimaru was okay.

Ishimaru began sobbing loudly, which startled Komaeda. What was he supposed to do now? Maybe he could leave, and act like that hadn’t just happened, but the more he stood there contemplating and listening to Ishimaru cry the more he decided he had to do something. Ishimaru had said he considered Komaeda as a friend, and he would be a pretty terrible friend if he didn’t at least try to make Ishimaru stop crying. He inched towards the bed and gingerly sat on its edge. There wasn’t much he could do, really, except try to comfort Ishimaru. 

And so that is what Komaeda did. Scooting closer to Ishimaru, he began soothingly rubbing his shoulder. Almost immediately, Ishimaru seemed to sense his presence and stopped crying. Even though Ishimaru had stopped, Komaeda did not leave. Taking the sleeve of his jacket, he wiped Ishimaru’s tears away. It didn’t bother him at all to have a sleeve that was now soaked. Actually, it kind of did, and so he took his jacket off and spread it over the bedsheets. The wet sleeve would dry in no time. Through all of this, Komaeda continued to rub Ishimaru’s shoulder. He suspected Ishimaru would begin to cry again if he stopped, anyway. 

There was a small shift, and Ishimaru seemed to lean into his touch a little. Once again, Komaeda didn’t know how to feel about this. All he knew was that it was a generally positive emotion. But if that was true, why was his heart beating so hard and fast, as if he was nervous? Irrationally, he felt as if the sound of his heart beating would wake Ishimaru up. Komaeda briefly wondered if he should get up and leave, but decided against it. After all, he’d only be getting up to leave and sleep in a tent on the hard gymnasium floor, which was less than favorable. At least here he had an actual bed to sleep in, and Ishimaru was with him. There was something about having someone else with him — and that someone else being Ishimaru — that made everything better. Even if his motives sounded questionable, there was a perfectly logical reason for wanting to sleep in the same room as Ishimaru. They were in a situation where people were trying to kill each other, after all. Right away, he could think of two advantages to being with Ishimaru — his room could be locked, and if someone did manage to get in somehow they could probably overpower the murderer, a difficult feat made easier by the fact that there was more than one of them.

Thinking through all these things didn’t dull Komaeda’s heartbeat in the slightest. He fell asleep to the sound of his incessantly beating heart.

Saying that Ishimaru had an internal clock would not be so far from the truth. Despite the interruption in his sleep, he once again woke up at about six in the morning. It didn’t take him long to realize something was amiss, or at least different from usual. For one thing, there was a familiar green jacket layered on top of his normal blankets. For another thing, there was an unfamiliar warmth all along his left side, and what felt like someone’s arms wrapped around his left arm.

Needless to say, when he looked to his left and found Komaeda curled against his side like he belonged there or something, he yelled so loudly that Komaeda was jarred out of his sleep.

“What’s wrong now? It’s too early for this,” Komaeda complained, pulling the blanket over his head.

Ishimaru was annoyed by his refusal to acknowledge the fact that they had apparently been sleeping together. “What are you doing in my bed?” he demanded, pulling the blankets away from Komaeda.

“You’re the one who took me to your room in the first place,” Komaeda pointed out.

Ishimaru couldn’t argue with that, but he had thought that Komaeda would have simply left upon waking up. “Then why are you still here?”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go. I’m not stupid. Going back to my tent would have been more dangerous.”

Once again, Ishimaru found Komaeda’s reply to be reasonable. However, there was one thing that was completely unreasonable, no matter how he thought of it. “Then why are you in my bed?”

“I...” Komaeda had no good answer for that. “I don’t know, sorry!” With that he jumped out of bed.

“Well, don’t do it again,” Ishimaru said. Suddenly, he remembered waking up and someone carrying him, and then falling asleep again only to dream of everyone abandoning him. He had yelled for everyone to not leave him, and he had a feeling that he had actually been yelling. “When I was asleep, did I...did I say anything?” he asked.

Komaeda nodded. “You started yelling in your sleep just as I was going to leave the room. I didn’t think it was a good idea to leave, so I stayed here. I must have fallen asleep, I guess.”

“Well...thank you for staying, I guess,” Ishimaru said. “That was a bad dream! To be honest, I’m surprised I haven’t had any more or worse night terrors, considering our situation.”

“You’re welcome. Hey Ishimaru-kun...are you sure you consider me a friend?” Komaeda felt compelled to ask him that, as he sensed that Ishimaru had been uncomfortable with seeing him asleep in his bed when he had woken up.

“Of course you are!” Ishimaru quickly responded. “In fact, I consider you as something more than a friend!”

“R...really?” At this, Komaeda’s heartbeat began speeding up again. He didn’t think he had done anything at all that could be considered important. 

“Yes! I think you are my brother, in a way! I should have figured it out sooner, really. I used to share beds with my brothers, but since I was the eldest I eventually got my own room,” Ishimaru explained. “So if we are friends who have slept in the same bed, I think we are as close as brothers!”

“Oh.” For some reason he could not fully discern, Komaeda was disappointed. He expected, or wanted, Ishimaru to say something else, but he didn’t know what that something else was. If Ishimaru said they were brothers, that was what they were going to be, because at least he had a clear stance on their relationship. Until he understood exactly what he wanted, he wouldn’t voice this disappointment. “Well, if that’s what you want us to be, I’m honored to be your brother.”

“Well, I’m glad you — oh, hold on!” Ishimaru hastily scrambled out of bed, snatched his somewhat crumpled jacket off the floor, and put it on. “I have to make sure everyone in the gym is all right!” He exited the room while tugging his boots on, which resulted in Ishimaru hopping out of his dorm. 

Komaeda watched him go, slightly amused at how Ishimaru was trying to be as efficient as possible and ended up looking ridiculous in the process. Ishimaru didn’t care what others thought of him, he did what he thought was right without even taking the risk of alienation from others into consideration. If he did, he didn’t think it was important. Komaeda thought it was all very endearing. 

As he ran across the building to the gym, Ishimaru couldn’t help but think over what had happened last night. He had dreamed up that horrible night terror, but he remembered the dream had spontaneously stopped, to be replaced with a soothing warmth. He realized that probably corresponded to when Komaeda decided to stay with him. It was good to know that he had someone around to comfort him. While that dream was relatively tame as far as nightmares went, it had still managed to get him to cry. It seemed that what he had needed all along was someone else with him, and he had finally gotten it.

Ishimaru reached the gym and went through the tents, as usual. Like yesterday, Hinata was waiting for him at the gym entrance. “Ishimaru, I’m...oh, how do I say this.” After a brief pause to collect his thoughts, Hinata tried again. “I know I said it yesterday, but thanks for dealing with Komaeda. He’s a creep, but it looks like you’re actually getting him to behave. That’s what he needed, I guess, someone who would actually be friends with him without being scared off beforehand.”

“It was no problem, really! He actually helped me with...with some things.” Ishimaru found what had recently happened too embarrassing and private to speak about, and so he only gave vague hints about it.

Of course, this meant Hinata would have to guess at what happened, and his guess was off. “Are you talking about him trying to get everyone to stop suspecting you yesterday? You weren’t the culprit, but he was just making everything more complicated by making himself another suspect.”

“...Yes, it was that,” Ishimaru lied. “I was afraid you all really thought that I murdered someone! Once again, I would never do such an illegal thing! Now if you’ll excuse me, I must check on everyone to make sure they’re all right. I’m already late, which I apologize for. I won’t be late again!” he promised. “If there was a murder because of my tardiness, I’ll never forgive myself!”

Noticing Ishimaru’s distress, Hinata quickly tried to reassure him that everything was in fact fine. “Hey, I don’t think anyone died. I’ve been up for a while, and I haven’t heard anything out of the ordinary.”

“You really think so?” Ishimaru asked. “Well, I’m going to check, just to make sure!” And so he did, once again getting everyone to open their tents so he could confirm that they were all right, as Hinata had said. Hinata was proven right, and Ishimaru briefly considered turning over all inspection duties to him. However, Ishimaru honestly didn’t trust Hinata to carry on with that duty — regular people were not as hardworking as he was, and so Ishimaru decided it would be best if he continued to be the one in charge of inspecting the gym. 

Thanking Hinata for his cooperation, Ishimaru left the gym and began the relatively long trek back to his room. When he returned he found Komaeda had gone back to bed and was now asleep. Normally this would be all well and good, but Ishimaru was about to take a shower. The shower room door — along with all the shower room doors in the other boys’ rooms — had no lock, and Ishimaru was concerned about his privacy. He went to wake Komaeda up.

Naturally, Komaeda didn’t take too well to being forcefully awoken like that. He only groaned and rolled over, which irritated Ishimaru even more. 

“Wake _up!_ ” Ishimaru yelled. In his anger he actually pushed Komaeda to the floor, which did not seem to affect him at all.

“I thought I was done with sleeping on the floor.” Despite that, Komaeda didn’t try to get up.

“Well, I need you to get out!” Ishimaru told him.

“Huh?” Ishimaru’s sudden rudeness surprised Komaeda, and he acted like Ishimaru hadn’t actually meant to say that. After all, the last he had heard of Ishimaru was him deciding the two of them were going to be brothers. His sudden change of demeanor was more than a little strange.

Noticing that Komaeda was looking at him weirdly, Ishimaru began to explain himself. “I’m going to take a shower now! You have to get out of the room because these shower rooms have no locks. If you leave and I lock the door, then there’s no way you can come in the shower room!”

“But why would I go in the shower room while you were in there in the first place?” Komaeda asked. He could think of the principal reason, all right, and it made him blush to even think that Ishimaru thought he might do that.

“Because you might need to use the toilet and forget I was in there, or something like that!” Ishimaru replied innocently. 

“Right...” Komaeda said. He found himself thinking that Ishimaru’s apparent innocence was another endearing quality, as well. This needed to stop, before he started thinking of Ishimaru in ways that he shouldn’t. Maybe it would be better if he went back to following Hinata around, like he had before the first trial where Ishimaru had saved his life. It was both easy and hard to like Hinata — he made it absolutely clear that he didn’t want Komaeda around, and that meant that it was unlikely he would actually have to deal with Hinata reciprocating any feelings. On the other hand, Ishimaru welcomed his friendship, and to be honest Komaeda didn’t know what Ishimaru thought of him.

Speaking of him, Ishimaru was getting annoyed at Komaeda, who had suddenly decided to stare off into space. “Well, get out now!” Ishimaru yelled. He grabbed Komaeda by the shoulders, turned him around, and pushed him in the general direction of the door. Komaeda stumbled forward and exited the room, sitting down in the hall right by Ishimaru’s doorway. It was yet another long period of him sitting alone with nothing but his thoughts. Normally he rather enjoyed peace and quiet, but when he was trying hard not to think of things, Komaeda wished he could just run into a crowd of people and busy himself with trying to shut out their migraine-inducing noise instead of thinking. The problem was, not enough people were up at this hour to produce that level of noise, and so he could only try to endure his thoughts.

There was only one thing about Ishimaru that Komaeda could agree on: he rather liked him. It was not just a simple matter of them saving each other from execution, though. Komaeda found that there were many things about Ishimaru that should have made him dislikable, even contemptible, from his point of view. For one thing, Ishimaru was loud, even when he was trying to be quiet. There was hardly a time when he wasn’t yelling, and it made Komaeda flinch. More accurately, it used to make him flinch. For whatever reason, he was grudgingly beginning to endure Ishimaru’s lack of volume control. Maybe these were the hurdles one had to cross to become friends with someone.

However, that didn’t excuse the fact that they were ideologically incompatible. Ishimaru did not believe in a separation between people with talents and people without. He instead thought that anyone could become anything if they tried hard enough, which Komaeda didn’t understand. There were many cases where people could try their hardest to achieve an end that was virtually impossible, and Komaeda didn’t understand how Ishimaru didn’t see that. Logically, this would mean they would be enemies, but that was obviously not the case here.

Fortunately, Komaeda didn’t have to think long, because Ishimaru soon exited his room, having finished his shower.

“Well, do you want to do anything?” Ishimaru asked, looking down at him. 

“If you want to, we can go see the second floor,” Komaeda suggested. “Yesterday we didn’t check what was up there, and everyone seemed to be doing that all day.”

At Komaeda’s mention of the second floor, Ishimaru’s interest in it, which had faded away with the sauna incident and everything that had happened since, was refreshed. From how most people had rushed up to the second floor, he assumed that whatever was up there was fairly interesting. Even if it wasn’t, the fact that they were trapped in the school made their surroundings grow old rather quickly. Anything new was welcomed.

“Yes, we can definitely do that!” Ishimaru replied. He helped Komaeda stand up and they went off to explore the second floor of the school. Interest in the new floor was still high, and when they went up they found that almost everyone was up there. Ignoring everyone else and their surprise at seeing the two of them together, they went through the second floor. Two of the most prominent additions to this floor were a library and a swimming pool. The library was dark, dusty, and generally unfit for reading. Nobody really bothered to go in there — the two people who would probably have appreciated the room the most were dead. On the other hand, quite a few people used the pool, especially Asahina, which was to be expected.

It went without saying that the new “brothers” found a great deal of things to do up there. Ishimaru got the idea to clean out the library and make it more pleasant, but even he realized nobody, not even someone as stubborn as him, could get rid of the omnipresent dust. That project was abandoned as quickly as it had been thought of. Since that was a failure, they spent some time swimming instead. Mostly, that meant Komaeda sat in the shallow end of the pool and watched Ishimaru swim laps. Komaeda had never learned to swim, though he was sure with his luck drowning wouldn’t be an issue. Seeing that he was a newcomer to the pool area, Asahina raced Ishimaru, and of course she won. Ishimaru took losing very badly and Komaeda had to loudly suggest they do something else, much to his embarassment. Asahina never challenged him again, and although she didn’t say so outright, Ishimaru and Komaeda knew that it was because of Ishimaru being a poor sport. 

Actually, it seemed that they were finding excuses to not be involved with others at all. Though stripped of all the possessions that had belonged to the occupants, the dorm rooms of the dead students remained open so the students who lived in the gym could actually take showers, something they couldn’t do until the first trial. That meant there were now two open showers for them (the boys used Togami’s and the girls used Touko’s) unless somebody asked another person who lived in the dorm to use their shower. Komaeda took the opportunity to use Ishimaru’s shower instead, claiming that the boys wouldn’t want to use the shower if they knew that he had been using it.

Others began to notice that Ishimaru and Komaeda were often exclusively in each others’ company. Since it was common knowledge that Komaeda was definitely not in the right frame of mind, they were all worried about what might happen to Ishimaru. For all they knew, this was a ploy to get Ishimaru killed. Many people wanted to warn Ishimaru, but nobody could find a good time. Komaeda was always nearby, and voicing their concerns about him while he was in earshot was definitely not a good idea. In Ishimaru’s case, ignorance was bliss. He was glad to finally have someone he could call a friend, and even if he had been told that Komaeda might kill him, he would have brushed it off.

As for Komaeda, his feelings were more complicated. He knew that he was infatuated with Ishimaru to some extent for saving his life. After all, he was seconds away from being hanged when Ishimaru had convinced everyone not to do it. It was bothering him, because as long as that infatuation was still there, he felt unsatisfied with just being Ishimaru’s close friend. Komaeda knew that he should have been grateful to have any friends at all, but he couldn’t really stop himself from feeling that way. The best he could do was not express them — as long as he did that, Ishimaru wouldn’t know anything was amiss.

However, it all came to an end one morning. For the past week or so, the two of them had been sleeping together in Ishimaru’s room, upon Ishimaru’s insistence that this was what normal brothers did. He brought up the fact that that was how he was with his brothers, but he either failed to explain that the arrangement was due to his family’s poverty, or genuinely thought that that was how all brothers were. Whatever it was, he did think that sleeping with Komaeda was safer than sleeping in his room by himself, even if he had a lockable door that was apparently unpickable. This was all well and good on Ishimaru’s behalf, but Komaeda had other issues.

He did not know how bad it was until one morning, where he woke up drenched in sweat and with a tent in his pants. However unsure he thought he was about Ishimaru, his body seemed pretty sure in its opinion on him. This would not do at all. For one thing, Komaeda didn’t wear any pants while sleeping, and his current condition was very noticeable since he was only in his underwear. He quickly glanced over at Ishimaru to see if he had woken up. Ishimaru was still asleep, and it didn’t look like he would wake up soon. That was Komaeda’s cue to leave. He rapidly looked around, then carefully got out of bed and ran to the bathroom. A few minutes later, he exited the bathroom, went over to the door, and quietly left.

Through all of this, Ishimaru slept. It was still an hour before he was due to wake up, anyway, and he didn’t think much of Komaeda leaving, though he had stirred slightly when it happened. He thought Komaeda just had to go to the bathroom, something which was confirmed when he heard the bathroom door open. Without thinking too much of it, Ishimaru drifted off to sleep again.

However, he was rather surprised when he woke up and found that Komaeda was still gone. There seemed to be no explanation for it, the other boy had just disappeared. Fighting back disappointment, Ishimaru got up and walked to the gym as usual. Everyone was there, save for Komaeda, which appeared to be the norm. Since it happened so often, nobody thought anything of it, and explained that they had thought he was with Ishimaru.

Though he was worried, Ishimaru convinced himself that Komaeda would not die so easily. He had survived an execution and an attack meant for Ishimaru — besides, the others seemed to be scared of him to some extent. The only thing Ishimaru could do was go about his day like he used to, which he found somewhat difficult. The entire day, he found no sign of Komaeda. It was both disappointing and relieving. On one hand, Ishimaru could easily try to push him out of his mind, but on the other hand, it was disheartening to see that his friend could just disappear like that.

Needless to say, the entire day, Ishimaru seemed a little depressed. Hinata, who had been relieved when Komaeda had decided not to bother him, couldn’t empathize with Ishimaru, but he tried to offer his condolences nonetheless. After lunch, he approached Ishimaru and attempted to talk to him. 

“Hey, I never really liked Komaeda much, but I know you did,” Hinata began. “If he’s gone, then...I don’t know, he’s just having a weird mood swing or something. There’s a good chance he’ll come back when that’s over, because you actually seem to get him to behave, slightly. I don’t know if it’s your talent or what, but you do.”

“Really?” Ishimaru asked.

“Yeah,” Hinata told him. “And just so you know, I don’t think anyone killed him. He’d probably kill them first.”

“Well, don’t feel bad for me!” Ishimaru decided. “I will not act any worse than usual just because someone is not here! Even if it is someone I consider my friend. Even so, I have to thank you, Hinata-kun. I’ll keep that in mind.” With that, he got up and left the cafeteria.

Everything proceeded normally until night. Ishimaru tried to sleep and found that he physically could not do so without Komaeda there, most likely because his protection was gone. He wanted to get up and go to the gym to see if Komaeda was there, but he didn’t dare break the rules about Night Time. His exception was bad enough. Well, that meant he could go to the gym during his inspection time and instead go to sleep in Komaeda’s tent. That way, he would at least have an hour of sleep. However, it would be eight long and sleepless hours before that would happen. Ishimaru sat motionless on his bed for the majority of that time, absolutely exhausted but somehow unable to sleep. The entire time, his eyes were glued to his wristwatch, but he was mostly too tired to even notice what time it was. However, even though he hadn’t slept, his internal clock was still functioning somewhat, and his intuition told him when it was about six in the morning. Convinced it might be his own drowsiness, Ishimaru checked his watch, which only confirmed it was the time which he had thought it was.

A shock seemed to go through him, and he burst out of his room and all but ran for the gym. When he reached it, he found that everybody was asleep. Ishimaru crept to Komaeda’s tent and opened it. To his relief, he found that Komaeda was there. When Ishimaru entered, Komaeda seemed to sense he was there and opened his arms. Ishimaru lay down in them and almost immediately fell asleep. It was only an hour, but it was the best nap he had had in a while.

* * *

Hinata was worried. Ishimaru hadn’t come around for inspection, and the beginning of the day had already been announced. Everyone but Komaeda had left to go to the cafeteria already. Komaeda had to be sleeping — Hinata had seen him the previous night. Groaning, Hinata realized he would have to wake Komaeda up. He went over to Komaeda’s tent, opened it, and stood dumbfounded when he saw what was inside.

Ishimaru was in there, curled up against Komaeda. Now this was the most ridiculous thing Hinata had seen. _This_ was why Ishimaru hadn’t been there for inspection?

“Get up already!” Hinata exclaimed, acting like this was a commonplace occurrence. “You guys slept through the morning announcement!”

At the sound of Hinata’s voice, Ishimaru woke up immediately and exited the tent. Komaeda took a little longer to wake up.

“I’m sorry for oversleeping!” Ishimaru told Hinata as they walked out of the gym. “That won’t happen again!”

“Well, at least nobody died,” Hinata said. “Just...why the hell did you do that? Sneak into the gym to sleep with Komaeda, I mean.”

“All I wanted to do was sleep with my brother!” Ishimaru replied.

Hinata winced. In all his life, he had never seen any brothers act like that, and if he did he would have assumed they were incestuous. “Ishimaru, I don’t think you guys are brothers,” he explained bluntly.

With that, Hinata left for the cafeteria, but Ishimaru stayed behind. He looked back at the gym, where Komaeda seemed to be having some trouble waking up.

If Komaeda wasn’t his brother, then what was he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is an example of why i, yosh yoshington, do not write fluff — yosh


	4. The Concept of Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's done??? yeah this part is, but only because of some shit at the end that requires it — yosh

Hinata’s words embedded themselves in Ishimaru’s mind. What was Komaeda to him? Not a brother, apparently. Ishimaru could think of a few other alternatives, but they didn’t seem very likely. At least they weren’t likely on his end, anyway. He didn’t know much about Komaeda except for the very few things which he revealed. It was frustrating, to be honest. Ishimaru understood that not everybody was easily read, but he didn’t know how he could really be so close to Komaeda while knowing little to nothing about him.

“Wait, Hinata-kun!” Ishimaru yelled, frantically trying to catch up with Hinata. “What did you mean by that? What does Komaeda-kun appear to be to me if you don’t think we’re brothers?” Again, Ishimaru had already thought of some alternatives, but he didn’t know how out of place and delusional his suspicions were. Asking around would confirm or deny what he thought.

Hinata groaned. He couldn’t believe he had to explain this to anyone, much less Ishimaru. He had always thought Ishimaru was supposed to be smart, but Hinata supposed that didn’t apply to social situations. “Are you really going to ask me?” he asked. Ishimaru only nodded. “Well,” Hinata began, “you and Komaeda look like lovers to me.”

“WHAT?!” Ishimaru had thought that might be the case, but he hadn’t expected that others might think so, as well. What were they doing that made them seem like lovers? It certainly wasn’t anything he was doing, so deductive logic showed that it had to be what Komaeda was doing. Besides, Ishimaru wasn’t romantically interested in anyone. Considering the situation they were all in, being romantically interested in someone was completely inappropriate. “What — what’s that supposed to mean? Why would you even say that?”

Hinata thought back to how Ishimaru and Komaeda had been sleeping that morning. “It’s very obvious as to why.”

Catching Hinata’s train of thought — it was the only reason Ishimaru could find as to why people might think he and Komaeda might be lovers — Ishimaru protested, “While it’s true lovers might sleep together, brothers do so as well! You’re talking to someone who had to sleep with his younger brothers for years!”

“Yes, but brothers don’t sleep together like that.” It wouldn’t be wrong to say that Ishimaru and Komaeda had been cuddling in the tent, and that was a decidedly nonfraternal thing to do.

“Well...” Once again, Ishimaru was using his deductive reasoning. If he wasn’t the one attracted to Komaeda, then Komaeda was the one attracted to him. What was he supposed to do about that? He had never quite understood this teenage romance stuff. More specifically, he had never bothered with it, as there were far more important things for him to be concerned about, like getting good grades at school and working. Now, however, it seemed like something he might have to be concerned with. The other things he had been busy with were now undoable, anyway.

Even if Hinata was wrong, this was definitely going to put a strain on Ishimaru’s relationship with Komaeda. Now that Ishimaru had thought about it, nothing would ever be the same again.

“Thank you for telling me, Hinata-kun,” Ishimaru said. “I honestly didn’t understand that until it was pointed out to me!”

“Really,” Hinata replied. “It was obvious to me, so...well, it was no problem.” Shrugging noncommittally, he walked off. Ishimaru could only wish he could brush the whole affair off that easily. However, he could only act like nothing had happened, which was proving to be very difficult. The affair was gnawing on his mind, and he didn’t know what to do. Perhaps distance was needed, he realized. He didn’t want to tear himself away from his only close friend, but if he wanted to clear up everything, this was what he’d have to do.

“Hey! Hey, Hinata-kun!” Ishimaru yelled, running ahead to catch up to the person he had just named.

“Huh?” Hinata asked, turning around. “What do you want now?”

“I...I don’t feel well today! I think it must be my lack of sleep,” Ishimaru lied. “So I think I’ll try to sleep some more today! Can you lead the meeting today, or at least tell someone else to do that for me? I’ll appreciate it!” Without waiting for an answer, Ishimaru turned and ran for the dorms. He had heard footsteps behind him, which meant Komaeda was approaching. The last thing Ishimaru wanted to do was attract Komaeda’s attention, which he had just done by suddenly running out of the room and shouting his motives to Hinata louder than he should have in a situation like that, one where he was trying to at least be partially secretive. Actually, that might help him, since it meant that Komaeda would know why Ishimaru had left.

When he reached his dorm room, Ishimaru quickly slammed the door and locked it, then jumped into bed. He didn’t like to lie, and so he decided to do what he had told the others he was doing — trying to get some sleep. He realized too late the reason why he hadn’t been able to sleep earlier. It had been because Komaeda hadn’t been there to sleep with him, and Komaeda was the person Ishimaru was trying to avoid. If this was how things were going to be now, Ishimaru needed to find a way to sleep by himself, at least for the time being. This was where his incredible willpower would come in handy.

The short nap he had taken with Komaeda had been extremely nice, but it did nothing to take the edge off the fatigue Ishimaru felt from lacking hours of sleep. Eventually, there was a point where Ishimaru absolutely needed to sleep, no matter how tired he became. There could literally be a murderer hovering right over him with a knife and he would still fall asleep, despite all of the obvious dangers. In that way, Ishimaru was able to fall asleep by himself, even without Komaeda’s presence. Ishimaru told himself that needing someone else to be there in order to sleep was the most irrational thing he could do, and when he woke up he believed it.

His watch told him it was afternoon, to Ishimaru’s relief. He hadn’t wasted a day sleeping like he suspected he might have been doing. There was still time for him to do something productive, like try to stop people from killing each other by trying to foster a sense of community, despite the fearful situation everyone was in. After all, people were less likely to kill others that they truly and openly trusted.

Ishimaru was just thinking of how everyone needed to learn to trust each other so they could live in peace within the school as he opened the door to find that Komaeda was standing right there. That came as such a shock to him that he jumped back a bit, gawking at his unexpected visitor. Actually, Komaeda’s arrival wasn’t so unexpected — Ishimaru had briefly entertained the possibility, but it had dissipated due to his deep sleep. Now it was staring him in the face in the worst way possible.

“Hey, Kiyotaka-kun!” Apparently, Komaeda hadn’t noticed Ishimaru’s disturbed state. The fact that he just referred to Ishimaru by his given name was a little disturbing, too.

“What?!” Ishimaru’s tone was unusually snappish, and it was Komaeda’s turn to be shocked.

“I was worried about you,” he began, unsure if he should leave or not. “You ran off like that without even telling me! I thought something was wrong.”

“Wrong?” Ishimaru echoed, forcing his way past Komaeda and walking down the hall. “I’m perfectly fine, thank you! Why would you think anything is wrong with me?”

“Because you’re acting different,” Komaeda pointed out, running after him. “I don’t know why, but...is it because of what Hinata-kun said to you? I noticed you were talking with him.”

It was definitely because of what Hinata said, but Ishimaru didn’t feel like disclosing the details about that. It was awkward for everyone involved, and if he said that he suspected that Komaeda liked him and ended up wrong, it would be extremely embarrassing. Suspecting that anyone had feelings for him was rather arrogant, to say the least, and so Ishimaru kept his mouth shut about that.

“I’m okay,” he insisted. “I only need time to myself, that’s all!” He turned and walked away quickly.

Instead of following him, Komaeda looked down the hall with a bewildered expression on his face. He didn’t understand why Ishimaru was suddenly ignoring him,  or at least not at first. Then he remembered every awkward detail of what had happened earlier that morning. Ishimaru had to have learned what had happened, there was no other justification for how he was acting. It was disgusting, Komaeda knew that. Ishimaru had every right to break off their friendship because of that. But if that was the case, Komaeda only wanted to hear Ishimaru outright say it. Hearing it from someone else would reinforce or debunk the fact that he was horrible, which was still just Komaeda’s personal opinion of himself.

“Wait, hang on!” Komaeda yelled, running towards Ishimaru. “What did I do? Why are you ignoring me now?” He was aware of the wildly desperate tone of his voice, which would probably give Ishimaru the impression that he was half-crazed. That would be pathetic. Ishimaru was only his friend, or so he had thought. Acting all heartbroken about his friend’s decision to cut contact with him didn’t quite make sense.

As can be expected, Ishimaru ignored his question. In fact, he acted completely as if he had never ever heard it, not even stopping to hear what Komaeda had asked, or so Komaeda thought. Of course, Ishimaru might have not needed to stop to listen to the question, but in his upset frame of mind Komaeda assumed the worst.

“If anything’s wrong, you can...just tell me...” Mid-sentence, Komaeda stopped running. He had completely given up on going after Ishimaru. Besides, yesterday he had been the one hiding, though there had been an actual reason. Ishimaru had probably thought that was the end of their friendship and decided to avoid him after that. If that was the case, why had he gone to the gym that morning? Everything failed to add up.

* * *

Ishimaru was relieved that he had easily managed to avoid Komaeda like that. He had been worried that he was going to slip up and say something about what he thought during the confrontation, which would easily ruin everything. While he had managed to do something that time, Ishimaru didn’t feel prepared for another confrontation. He didn’t know what to do, and so he decided to find Hinata for advice again. Since Hinata had told him what the actual situation was in the first place, he would probably know what to do about it.

The second floor was still where most of the students spent their time, Hinata included. Ishimaru ran upstairs and searched for him. Surprisingly, he found that Hinata was in the library, the very place that Ishimaru had given up on trying to clean. Apparently, Hinata, Naegi, and Kirigiri had dusted off a table in their and spent their days in that room. At any rate, it was a decent place to talk, especially about secrets — nobody else went in there much, and not many people bothered to check the library when looking for other people.

“Oh, looks like you’re back,” Hinata commented when he saw Ishimaru enter. “How’d sleeping go? I’m not going to lie, it was a pain to get everyone to listen me. I don’t know how the hell you do it...” To be fair, Ishimaru couldn’t get everyone to listen to him, either. Hinata frowned. “Komaeda actually insulted me for trying to take your place. He said something about me being a poor replacement for you. How obvious can you get?”

“What?” Ishimaru asked. “What’s obvious?”

Hinata groaned, frustrated by Ishimaru’s obliviousnesss. Or was he just unwilling to face the truth? “Remember what I told you this morning?”

“Oh...” Ishimaru frowned. He hadn’t wanted to remember that, because it was what he was trying to avoid. “Well, can you tell me what to do here? I think this entire situation is very awkward, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it!”

Hinata sighed and put his face in his hands. He didn’t want to get caught in the middle of this kind of drama. They all had much better things to do besides...whatever was happening here. “What do you think I am, the Super High-School Level Romance Guru? I don’t have anything to say about this.”

“You might actually be that, though. After all, didn’t you say you don’t exactly remember what your talent is?” Ishimaru pointed out.

“Oh, what the hell!” Hinata exclaimed, offput by Ishimaru’s reaction to his sarcastic comment. “That isn’t the point here! The point is, I’m not going to help you with your problem, just keep doing whatever you’re doing. It’s working fine, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so...but that means I’m going to have to ignore Komaeda-kun. Is that it?” Ishimaru asked.

“If that’s what you’re doing then go do that,” Hinata said. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore. “There’s nothing else I can do to help.”

“Well...thank you for trying, I suppose,” Ishimaru replied. “I’m sorry, I thought you knew more about avoiding Komaeda-kun, seeing as you do that all the time!”

“But you can see why now, right?” Hinata snapped. “If that’s all you wanted to say, you should probably go now.”

“...Yes,” Ishimaru said. “I’m going to try to ignore Komaeda-kun now, and maybe this will all blow over.” He stepped into the hall, quickly looking around to see if he had attracted any unwanted attention. Nobody was there. Relieved, Ishimaru continued downstairs with greater confidence that he wouldn’t be bothered. He couldn’t find any signs of Komaeda being around on the first floor, either, which was both reassuring and worrisome. It was entirely possible that he was just hiding out somewhere, waiting for Ishimaru to appear. As a preventative measure, Ishimaru decided that he was going to have to avoid going to all the places that he used to go with Komaeda.

This left him very little options, and in the end he had to resort to sitting in one of the second-floor classrooms. The classrooms were up there with the library as the least popular places for people to go, probably because they carried the memories of school with them. While everyone was trapped in a building and encouraged to kill each other, it was worse to be trapped in a building, encouraged to kill each other, and have to go to school on top of that. Of course, they didn’t have to take classes, but the libraries and classrooms reminded them they might have.

Nobody bothered Ishimaru all day, and he liked it better like that. Sure, others might be dying just outside, but he hoped that the last suicide had shocked people into reconsidering their plan. Someone had died because of the execution of someone else, which of course was caused by that person killing someone else. That single act, killing someone, was horrible in and of itself, but it had so many more repercussions. It was highly unlikely that anyone would ever get to graduate. With the large number of people around, at least one person would have to know something. It would be best for everyone if they tried to make the best of their situation and lived peacefully. Then again, some people just wouldn’t be able to accept the loss of their freedom.

When night began, Ishimaru had to go downstairs to his room. As luck would have it, he passed by Komaeda on his way there. Flinching slightly, he waited for something to happen, but nothing did. It was as if he wasn’t even there. Upon entering his room Ishimaru fell on his bed and almost immediately slept. He was incredibly relieved, glad that everything had been fixed in a short period of time. Komaeda didn’t seem to care anymore, and all was just fine.

Everything was just fine for two days, during which things were almost like they were before Hiyoko had died. The sole difference was that they were short three people, but everyone tried to forget about that. The less they thought about the murders, the better. There had been no murder motives so far, and it seemed that the three successive deaths really had sated the mastermind’s interest for a while. Whoever it was seemed content with leaving them as is for the time being.

While Komaeda wasn’t going out of his way to avoid Ishimaru, they acted like acquaintances that never had a reason to talk to each other. It was better this way, Ishimaru told himself. After all, this meant that Komaeda would have an easier time getting over him. Ishimaru had no idea what to do if a person liked him romantically, and getting them to stop liking him was the best he could do in that situation.

Once, he bumped into Komaeda by accident when he was leaving the cafeteria. “Sorry for running into you! I’ll stop bothering you now, I promise,” Komaeda said as he stepped out of the doorway. That apology didn’t make sense given the situation, which was bumping into Ishimaru, and it was obvious that he wasn’t referring to that incident at all, or at least not wholly. Indeed, he wanted to apologize to Ishimaru for trying to interact with him when he obviously didn’t to associate with Komaeda anymore. Thinking that he would have a friend, let alone someone who would have feelings for him, was one of the stupidest decisions he had ever made. It was only his dedication to hope that had allowed him to hold on to such beliefs. And in the end, that had gotten him absolutely nowhere.

“Watch where you’re going!” was all Ishimaru told him in reply. And that, it seemed, was the end of that. Ishimaru was much happier or at least more content without Komaeda around, and the only thing Komaeda could do was respect that. However, he was still sad about it, because this entire situation was stupid. One thing he had done had destroyed the only friendship he had made. It was all his fault that this had happened, and the only thing he could do was live with it, and maybe cry in his tent.

However, his observation that Ishimaru was more content after their friendship had broken off turned out to be wrong. After those two days of relative peace and quiet, Ishimaru began to feel bad. It was gradual, but by lunchtime, he was absolutely despondent. This was all for absolutely no reason too, or at least he didn’t understand why he was feeling this way. He wanted to ask someone for advice, but the one person he had talked to didn’t want to help with this subject anymore. He had nobody to turn to.

That couldn’t be right, though. There had to be something he could do. After all, this wasn’t tied to any romantic drama at all, and he hadn’t heard Hinata say he wouldn’t talk about anything else. It was worth a shot, because it was the only option he had.

However, when Ishimaru got to the library, the only person there was Kirigiri. He had entered the library, seen her, and was about to leave in search of Hinata, but Kirigiri greeted him before he could exit the library.

“Hello, Ishimaru-kun. Is something the matter?” she asked.

“No!” he instinctively replied. He would rather keep as many people from knowing what was wrong with him as he could. He was the one trying to keep everything together, and if anyone suspected that even he was beginning to break, then what would inevitably follow was absolute chaos and more dead people. He could not allow that to happen as long as he lived. Sure, that meant someone who wanted to get out would most likely target him, but if he was dead he wouldn’t know of that happening.

However, Kirigiri had always been good at reading people. In particular, Ishimaru was easy to read, and she had noticed the suspicious promptness with which he had answered her question. Really, that was the sure sign that something was wrong. Instead of confronting him on this, she sat back and looked at him, waiting for him to either run away or break down and tell her what was wrong. Because he wanted to get advice on what to do, Ishimaru chose the latter option.

“Actually, yes,” he admitted, sitting down at the library table Kirigiri was at. “I don’t even know what’s wrong, actually! I just feel extremely sad, even though there’s no reason for it! In this kind of situation, I cannot afford to feel bad about things. No, I have to stay strong and make sure everyone trapped here with us stays safe!”

“I see,” Kirigiri said, nodding. “Maybe...perhaps you are upset over a loss. Are you missing anything important?”

To Ishimaru, everything made so much sense now. After all, he was going to be trapped in the school building indefinitely. His old life was gone now, and it would be practically impossible to return to it. His family was extremely important to him, as well. He had to be missing them. “I am, actually! I think we all are, because we can’t see our families anymore,” he answered. “I must be badly homesick!”

Kirigiri sighed and looked at the doorway for a moment. “Yes, that could be,” she said. “But we’ve been here for a while and you weren’t homesick before that, or even shown any signs of missing your home...no, don’t you say you want to make the best of this situation? Maybe you  should think more recently.”

“Recently? Why would I miss anything inside this place? There’s nothing here to miss!” Ishimaru replied, scoffing at her suggestion. “Honestly, what kind of question is that? I must be homesick!”

“If that’s what you believe, I can’t really say anything else,” Kirigiri said. “I’m not the one who’s sad over something, it’s you.”

“Right...” Ishimaru said, reflecting over his home. Was he really that homesick? Previously, he had begun to forget the finer details of his family and home, and had been horrified at the very thought of that. That must have been the root of his problem, because once he first thought of going back home everything could only get worse from there — the only thing he could do then was think of it more.

Now, there was a difference, and it wasn’t just Ishimaru’s homesickness getting worse. When he had first thought of it, he had brushed off the idea of trying to graduate so he could go home. Murder was murder, no matter why he did it, after all. But now, now that his homesickness was pretty bad, he was beginning to contemplate the possibility. His former policy on killing others would work to his advantage there, too. Nobody would suspect him, the guy who was devoted to the laws to the point of stupidity. If he killed anyone, he could fastidiously get rid of any evidence that might have a change of putting him in suspicion and watch as everything devolved into confusion at the class trial. Maybe he would say a few things and give out a false lead, as well. Since he had been important at the other two trials, surely everyone else would expect him to help out again. The previous times, he had been trustworthy, even proving himself after being accused, so there was no reason for everyone to distrust him, not until they had all been completely fooled. And it wouldn’t be his fault entirely, because if they had worked harder to see through his deception this wouldn’t have happened.

The matter at hand was now figuring out who would be the easiest target. However, in the period of relative stability they had, it was hard to single one out. The easiest person to kill had been the last victim, and even then everyone had suspected Ishimaru of killing Touko anyway. The only thing he could really do now was observe everyone else and see who would be the easiest to kill. Maybe it was the person sitting with him. As a deductive genius, Kirigiri had to be confident in her chances of surviving, perhaps even to the point of arrogance. She wouldn’t suspect that anyone would try to kill her, because she was practically the one keeping everyone from getting killed. In light of the execution of Togami, the consequences of failure to cover up your murder adequately was clearly imprinted in everyone’s mind. People were more wary of attempting to graduate, and more anxious to succeed in the class trials. If Kirigiri died, the investigation would have a hard time continuing.

“Are you okay?” Kirigiri asked, snapping Ishimaru out of his thoughts. “You’ve been sitting there and staring blankly for a while.”

“What? No! I was thinking of —” To his horror, Ishimaru realized that he had essentially been planning a murder. He had been getting too carried away, but if he really wanted to go home so badly then that was what he had to do. It was so plausible that he couldn’t stand it. After all, it was killing a person, and then letting everyone else die, for what? Getting back home? Other people deserved to get out of the school, too, and he had to remember that. Going through with his plan would be a completely selfish act.

The fact that he had even been thinking of this meant he was a danger to everyone, as well. He didn’t know if other people were contemplating murder like he was, but that last thing was correct — he was, and since he could do something about it, that was what he was going to do.

“Excuse me! I must go now!” Ishimaru stood up and left the library, running as fast as he could towards his room. He planned to lock himself in his room to make sure that he couldn’t kill anyone. The only time it would be required for him to leave was for a trial, and even then trying to kill someone would be a stupid decision. Everyone would see him, and he would be executed for sure. Trying to get home like that would be useless.

When he got there, he realized that he needed supplies. While he wasn’t going to be outside, he still wanted to survive, not die of starvation or dehydration. Quickly, he ran to the storage room, grabbed all he could carry, and returned to his room. The things were promptly dumped on the table with no regard for stacking them neatly, as Ishimaru was busy with other things, namely locking the door. When that was done, he went ahead and stacked the food and drinks he had taken, though. There were some old habits he couldn’t shake, even when he was afraid of becoming a killer.

This was it. He wasn’t going back anymore. If he was going to keep thinking of killing other people, then he would have to barricade himself in his room so he couldn’t act on those thoughts.

He decided to think of home, because he didn’t know what exactly it meant. Home was where he lived, but technically he lived in the school now, and there was no way he was going to call that place home. No, there was a separate distinction, a kind of connection to the slightly run-down place where he lived. Something that the almost eerily clean dorm room — well, he spent a lot of time cleaning it — just couldn’t compare with. It had to be because he lived with his family at home, and here he had no loved ones around. It could almost be an acceptable sacrifice, the life of some person he didn’t really know and care about for the chance to see his loved ones again. Almost.

* * *

For three days, Ishimaru hadn’t dared leave his room, and he wasn’t about to start anytime soon. He wasn’t thinking of murder anymore, but for all he knew, the second he stepped outside and saw another human being, he would get the unconquerable urge to kill them. Since his goal was to be able to go home, that meant he would have to get away with it. Flying at the next person he saw and applying whatever was on hand as lethal force wouldn’t help. No, the murder would have to be properly planned and perfectly executed so he could avoid being executed himself.

Ishimaru wondered who would be forced to execute him if he got caught. Komaeda? There weren’t really any other choices. He hadn’t interacted with anyone else, so no other person would feel the sting of betrayal as acutely. Unless...unless he killed Komaeda. Then, he didn’t even know who would have to execute him. He had been the one to execute Togami during the first trial, and he had figured it out, so Ishimaru guessed that whoever discovered that he was the culprit would have to do it.

Thinking back to killing Komaeda, Ishimaru realized that he would be the easiest target. There was no reason for Komaeda to distrust Ishimaru, all weird avoidance things aside. Unless friendships were now meaningless, which they might have been, it would have been bad on Komaeda’s part to be afraid that Ishimaru was going to kill him. Besides, Ishimaru knew many people didn’t like Komaeda at all. That could cause them to be reluctant to investigate his murder, which Ishimaru was not going to help along. It was the perfect plan, or so he thought. And then he realized that he had actually been thinking of murdering the best friend he had in the school, and felt nothing. Well, not really. He was relieved and a little excited at the prospect of going home, which was even worse.

Suddenly, Ishimaru noticed a piece of paper lying by the door. He was sure that he hadn’t put it there — there was no way that he’d just make a mess like that, even — no, especially because he was locked in his room. When he was sitting in his room, there weren’t many options he had besides cleaning. That meant that somebody had to have slid it under his door. And the only reason anyone would do that was to pass him a note.

_What are you doing sitting in your room? Get out of there!_

So someone had noticed that he was in self-imposed exile, after all. Whoever it was didn’t know about what Ishimaru had been planning. He would have to set the record straight himself. Taking a pen, he wrote out a quick reply.

**No. I cannot.**

The paper shot back under his door in record time, considering how much had been written on it.

_What the hell do you mean you can’t! Are you suddenly scared of someone killing you? There haven’t been any motivations. It’s as safe as it can get out here._

**Who is this, anyway?**

_It’s Hinata. Can you answer my question now?_

Strange. Ishimaru hadn’t expected Ishimaru would notice or care enough to write him a note asking why he was in his room. Maybe everyone had thought he was dead and they hadn’t found the body yet, when somebody had decided to try slipping a note under his door.

**I’m not afraid of someone killing me. I’m afraid of killing someone.**

_You? Weren’t you the one freaking out over being labeled a murderer in the last trial? What happened to “Murder is illegal?”_

**I miss everyone back home, I can’t stay in here any longer! But murder is illegal, so I have to stay in here. I’m a danger to everyone!**

_What...I can’t fucking believe it._ This was followed by something else, but it was illegible and Ishimaru couldn’t read it. _That was Komaeda, sorry. He’s kind of jumpy. Ever since you left, he’s been following me around again and now he wants to write you notes. I don’t think you can read them, though._

So that was how it was. Hinata must have been trying to get Ishimaru out of there just so he could pawn Komaeda off to him again. It was stupid. He had already explained to Hinata why he couldn’t leave the room. Allowing him the chance to murder someone shouldn’t have been worth getting rid of an annoying person. Really, was Ishimaru the only logical person there?

**Is that why you want me to leave my room? So Komaeda will talk to me, instead of you? I can’t do that, and honestly you’re being selfish. People could die if I did that!**

For five minutes, everything was silent. Then the paper went back under Ishimaru’s door, with a ridiculously short answer for the time Hinata had spent writing it.

_Apparently he really misses you._

**If I open the door, I just might kill both of you. Does that mean anything to him?**

Ishimaru did not receive another note.

* * *

After that debacle, Ishimaru found a more pressing issue. He was low on water and beginning to run out of food. In this situation, he could either go outside or die. Starvation and dehydration were slow, horrible ways to go, so he decided that he would just have to risk a trip outside to restock from the storage room. Hopefully, the food there couldn’t run out, just as fresh food was put in the kitchen every night. If it ran out, he would have a problem. He was planning to go restock at midnight, and the cafeteria was closed during that time. Sure, it would be breaking the rules, but the difference was that Ishimaru was breaking the rules for everyone’s safety. There had been a time when even that would be unacceptable to him, but the alternative was to let someone die, whether it be himself or somebody else.

Besides, he didn’t know what would happen if he died of starvation. There could be a trial, but it seemed more likely that Monobear would break his door or force him out before that could happen. Starvation didn’t even have a hint of blood or violence. It would be hard to extract despair out of that, save for the person’s dying despair, of course. To avoid that, he was going to have to go to the storage room at midnight, after all. Actually, he wondered why Monobear didn’t break his door just to get him out in general, but he pushed the thought out of his mind instantly. Becoming paranoid based on shaky reasoning would do nothing except stress him out, which was not an optimal result. If he was stressed Ishimaru might do something stupid like run outside, and then people would die. If that wasn’t a bad move, then nothing was.

According to Ishimaru’s watch, it was still afternoon. Midnight would be hours away, and he didn’t and couldn’t stay up, succumbing to hunger and thirst. He looked over his inventory of food. There was one bottle of water and an unopened bag of prawn crackers. He could hold out on that until midnight, he told himself. He would have a fourth of the water and a handful of crackers, and then he was going to sleep. Hopefully, he would wake up around midnight, be able to get the food and water, and then return without anybody catching him. Ishimaru put his plan into motion and was able to go to sleep quickly. He could do it, he could survive this way.

Hours later, the loud broadcast announcing it was Night Time jarred Ishimaru out of his sleep. He hadn’t expected that, but it meant that he would be up for two more hours until he could carry out his plan. Those two hours were spent slowly finishing off the water and prawn crackers. Now, he wouldn’t be able to back out of his plan to go outside. If he did that, he would doom himself.

As soon as his watch hit midnight, Ishimaru opened his door as quietly as he could and headed directly for the storage room. In his rush to get there, he missed two things — he had not locked his door, and a shadowy figure hiding further down the darkened hallway used that opportunity to run into his room.

The storage room was thankfully deserted, and Ishimaru had all the time he wanted to get whatever he wanted to eat. Being outside still made him nervous, though, and once again he grabbed the first things he saw, even though he wasn’t in a hurry. Somebody might have decided to defy the rules they had made about going out at night. If Ishimaru ran into anyone like that, he would certainly kill them. He was so far gone that he just had to try to go home. If he didn’t and died, well...that would be better than having to live in the school for the rest of his life.

When he got back to his room, he should have noticed the door was ajar. But he didn’t. The only thing he thought regarding it was that it was convenient. Otherwise, he would have had to put some things down to unlock and open the door.

He certainly noticed when someone was in his room, though, and he dropped the food and water with a shock when he realized there really was another person there. Komaeda was right there, and Ishimaru realized that this meant he could go home. He could go home right now, if he tried. But did he really want to? He had no idea, but it wouldn’t be fair for him to attack right away. The best thing for him to do would be for him to at least give Komaeda a chance. During that time, he could figure out if he really did want to go home that badly.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Get out unless you want me to kill you!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What will you do now? Will you kill him?
> 
> > It's time.
> 
> > No, let's wait a little longer.
> 
> [> ...What, where did this come from?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1561616)
> 
> yes, this will be interactive and now i will have to write TWICE as much shit, i fucked myself over good — yosh


End file.
